The Finom, which focuses on SMB 115 million euros, closes with European temperatures

Although financing may be rare for some, the fastest growing emerging companies in Europe still choose them.

The last beneficiary of the investor’s appetite is FinomThe five -year -old Challenger Bank, based in Amsterdam, is targeting small and medium -sized works throughout Europe. The company, which claims to double its revenues in 2024, just closed a T -series of 115 million euros (about 133 million dollars), has learned Techcrunch exclusively. This comes after a few weeks just after its landing $ 105 million in growth financing From General Catalyst, its supporter Since 2021.

The Finom business model focuses on providing European small and medium -sized companies with a financial platform that combines banking services and bills with an increasing range of features, including accounting that supports artificial intelligence. “Because in theory, entrepreneurs do not need to obtain an accountant at all,” said CEO André Petrov (on the far left in the picture).

The ambitious growth objectives of the start of operation reflect this vision. While Petrov says the goal of the Finom is the presence of a million commercial customers by the end of 2026 motivational, not preserved in the stone, its new financing makes this goal more realistic.

This belief that Finom can serve a fair share of 26 million SMBS companies also reflected in the C. AVP (previously Axa Venture Partners), With the participation of the new investor the address (Previous E.Ventures) through address growth. Current investors Capito CapitalThe general catalyst, and North B. Also join the tour.

Despite this momentum, you may find starting starting that it is easier to win customers from old banks – their current plan – compared to other technology.

Even after the C series has raised its total financing to approximately $ 346 million, Finom has much lower external capital than Monzo, N26, Revolution or Wise, which all raised more than one billion dollars. Its financing so far is like approximately $ 700 million, which it raised as the closest counter in Finom, French Unonto Qonto Although the comparison is not perfect.

What makes the interesting Finom financing structure in particular is its unconventional element. Unlike the typical VCS, General Catalyst has not taken any ownership rights in Finom with its unconventional tour; The capital from customer value (CVF) can only be used for growth, which is planning to recover its money.

In addition to the Bes series B, this tour of the unconventional financing was sufficient for the Dutch company to reach profitability, according to the Chairman of the Board and the co -founder Kos Stecin (on the far right in the photo). But Finom was also hoping to raise shares by the end of the year, and obtain a new “good and gentle” evaluation in this process. What he did not expect is to close both deals near each other.

“One of them took longer than expected, and one of them was much faster than expected,” Stskeen told Techcrunch. He refused to reveal the updated evaluation, saying that it was only weak evaluation (which was also not revealed) 2024 $ 54 million chain b.

The timing may have worked for Finom. Since the company does not publish the unit’s economies – regardless of the base of its 125,000 users – the fact that General Catalyst has a look under the cover most likely helped increase attention and accelerate financing. The confidence vote – and its direct interest in recovering its money – may be the signal that made the investors hurry and write checks.

Besides signal effects, obtaining customer value can seem to finance the Finom Marketing efforts without giving up shares as a good deal for chain C -Catalyst itself.

However, the C series will also finance more serious efforts than customer acquisition through marketing.

According to Petrov, one of its uses can be strategic, and it is opportunistic acquisitions that allow it to expand its customer base or its product portfolio. This represents a shift in the strategy, since Finom has acquired only one company so far – in 2022, when purchasing CapagaA British -boundary payment service when Finom was thinking about expanding in the United Kingdom

Since then, Finom has turned its focus into some of the largest markets of Europe, where you see a greater chance than in the United Kingdom, the company believes that these markets have fewer competing banks competing for small and medium -sized companies and that traditional banks are making a bad job that serves small companies.

However, like many new regions, it only works with the license of the Electronic Money Corporation (EMI) in most of its main markets: the Netherlands, France, Italy and Spain (although it is not Germany, where it has partnered with it SolarisWho has a complete banking license).

Despite these licensing restrictions, he was able to do so Add lending in the NetherlandsAnd that it considers a test land for its credit display-something that Petrov considers a necessary matter for any Findte and business customers.

This lending initiative is also in line with the Finom efforts to expand its production line horizontally – with deposits and loans – and between the vertical, “starting with a bank account, terminating taxes, reports and everything.” Artificial intelligence also participates, not only on the side of the product.

The company also takes advantage of artificial intelligence internally. With a 500 team, it is expected to achieve some appointments related to business and technology, although not to expand its operations. “We add some people, but we often add new types of artificial intelligence agents to work with them internally,” Petrov said. “So we contract less than we need, and we see a good output in terms of the use of artificial intelligence agents and AI to automate part of the routine tasks (we have).”

The Finom Leadership structure has also evolved. The duties of the four founders in the Finom have gone through some changes over the years, with Petrov now the only CEO-a role that he once shared with Yakov Novikov, now a consultant alongside Oleg Laguta.

The three of them have previously established the Russian Digital Bank Bank. But this time, the Finom focus on Europe and businessmen who are, in the words of STISKIN, the “backbone of the European Union’s economy”.