German fintech Deposit Solutions attracts USD 100 million from Vitruvian and Kinnevik
The German fintech scene is booming. Latest Highlight: Deposit Solutions, the Open Banking pioneer and leading international platform for savings deposits, on August 15th announced the closing of one of the largest funding rounds in Germany in 2018 so far. USD 100 million have been invested by private equity firms Vitruvian Partners and Kinnevik as well as existing shareholders, valuing the company post money at USD 500 million.
Another positive sign of both the maturity of Deposit Solutions as well as of the German fintech market in general is that Deposit Solutions’ early investors FinLab, a stock market listed fintech investment company (A7A.GR), and Apeiron Investment Group, the family office of renowned German entrepreneur and star investor Christian Angermayer, have been able to sell USD 11.5 million each in a parallel secondary transaction. Both FinLab and Apeiron continue to be significant shareholders of Deposit Solutions with their remaining stake. Angermayer profits twice, as he is also the major shareholder of FinLab. Thanks to his Midas touch, The Sunday Times had included London-based Angermayer for the first time this year in their UK rich list, ranked 458th with an estimated wealth of approx. 350 million USD.
This transaction also cements FinLab’s position as the best-performing fintech investor in German speaking countries: Since FinLab’s and Apeiron’s first investment in September 2015, the valuation of Deposit Solutions has increased almost twenty times over.
Deposit Solutions’ Open Banking platform transforms the value chain in the savings deposit market — a USD 50 trillion market globally — to the benefit of banks and savers alike. Banks seeking deposit funding benefit from Deposit Solutions’ unique Banking-as-a-Service model: they can easily connect to the platform and gain access to deposit funding from the clients of other Points-of-Sale in different markets without having to set up and operate their own deposit infrastructure for these customers. As part of its service, Deposit Solutions also operates its own proprietary Points-of-Sale under the brands of ZINSPILOT and SAVEDO, which market the deposit offers of its partner banks directly to savers. On the other hand, banks and non-bank financial Point-of-Sale owners that want to offer their own customers an attractive choice of deposit products can integrate the platform into their own ecosystem to provide their customers with a selection of third-party deposit products under their existing client relationship.
The funding round follows another period of outstanding performance. Deposit Solutions now connects more than 70 banks from 16 countries to more than 30 million savers through a wide variety of Points-of-Sale including renowned financial institutions such as Deutsche Bank and Fidelity’s FFB. Deposit Solutions’ proprietary Points-of-Sale ZINSPILOT and SAVEDO have also continued to grow exponentially and more than doubled the total volume in transmitted deposits within the past nine months to more than EUR 9 billion. Their customer base has grown to over 155,000 customers in the same period.
