On EQT Ventures’ $52M Series A follow-on investment in Juni, the financial companion made for e-commerce entrepreneurs

In the first wave of neobanking disruption, the likes of Chime, Nubank and Revolut delighted the general population with digital-first banking experiences. This led to enormous value creation and as a result, many in the tech community concluded there wasn’t room left to further innovate in the space.

At EQT Ventures we disagree, in fact we have high-conviction that we are in the midst of a second (huge) wave in neobanking. This time around it’s the rise of “Vertical Neobank’s” — digital-first banks that serve specific segments (e.g. freelancers, landlords, start-ups), as opposed to the general population. Vertical banks will be highly disruptive, and will dominate a segment by offering curated and purpose-built products for the segment’s needs.

Enter Juni
First off, Juni is the fastest growing fintech we’ve ever seen, by a long stretch. The company has hit an impressive average weekly growth rate of 80% in just five months.

Secondly, the segment. Juni is building the financial companion for e-commerce entrepreneurs — in other words a Vertical Neobank targeting one of the biggest macroeconomic trends, the shift towards digital commerce. Undeniably a huge and growing segment, but also one with tons of data available via APIs, which facilitates innovation and underwriting.

Thirdly, the founders. The fact that we’ve known Samir (CEO) for a long time, and rate him highly, made the investment decision easy. Samir is joined by Jonathan (COO) and Anders (CTO) — together they’ve backgrounds in payments, fintech and banking, but also before Juni they were all internet entrepreneurs. In short, a team we believe is uniquely positioned to win this segment.

EQT Ventures is incredibly proud and honoured to announce that we are leading Juni’s $52m Series-A extension with participation from FJ labs and existing investors Cherry, Partners of DST Global and Felix Capital. With this new funding round Juni will triple the number of employees and launch an industry-first, fully integrated credit line product to its users.

“From the first board meeting EQT Ventures participated in, earlier this week”