In a partnership with Raiffeisen Bank International and UNIQA Insurance Group, Speedinvest f will provide EUR 50M in funding for Late-Seed and Series A companies.

Speedinvest f focuses on growth funding for European fintech companies in the areas of payments, alternative lending, insurance, investments, personal finance as well as data, compliance and infrastructure.

Typical ticket sizes for initial investments range from EUR 1M to 4M. Investors in Speedinvest f include a number of former Fintech founders and senior financial services experts from across the world, as well as NEA (New Enterprise Associates), one of the most renowned VC funds in the U.S.

Building upon a leading position in Fintech

Speedinvest has established itself as one of the major players in European Fintech over the last six years. Starting in 2012, Speedinvest was an early investor in companies such as Wikifolio (Social Trading), payworks (Mobile POS) and iyzico (Online payments). The success story continued with a successful exit of Holvi (SME banking) to BBVA in 2016.

During the past years, Stefan Klestil and his team have continued to provide seed capital and support to some of the most successful FinTech founders in the industry, ranking it as one of the most active VC funds in European Fintech. Currently, the active Fintech portfolio of Speedinvest comprises companies such as Wefox, Billie, Fincompare, Fraugster, Iyzico, Payworks, Curve, Cashpresso, Clausematch and Cyberwrite. Furthermore, Stefan Klestil has been actively supporting the founders of N26, the pan-European challenger bank, since their early days and is member of the Advisory Board.

Aside from funding, Speedinvest offers significant operational support to portfolio companies, such as advice and services for business development, corporate development, hiring, fundraising, and internationalisation. Former Fintech founders and financial services experts from the Speedinvest f network will operate as consultants and mentors to founders and help them achieve scale.

Speedinvest f is led by Stefan Klestil and Guzel Gumerova. Stefan Klestil has been Partner at Speedinvest since 2014 and led the establishment and development of the Fintech and Insurtech portfolio. Fintech expert Guzel Gumerova joined Speedinvest f as a new Partner and brings in her experience in lending, business development and investment banking.

RBI & UNIQA as strong partners

Within the partnership, Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) and UNIQA are each planning to contribute EUR 15M for fintech investments. RBI intends to invest in startups through its CVC company Elevator Ventures and to focus on the fintech sector. In addition, RBI can potentially offer fintech founders access to its innovative network in 14 markets in Central and Eastern Europe and its 16.6M customers.

Since 2016 UNIQA, the leading insurance player in the CEE region, has become well-experienced in startup investments and through UNIQA Ventures offers access to the ecosystems of Fintech, Healthtech, Mobility and Smart Home. Startups will most of all benefit from the strong Insurtech expertise.

“For us, Elevator Ventures’ investments are the logic addition to our fintech accelerator Elevator Lab. We are looking forward to the cooperation with Speedinvest and the opportunity to intensify our fintech engagement through this partnership”

says Johann Strobl, CEO of RBI, about his company’s partnership with Speedinvest f.

“UNIQA Ventures and the cooperation with Speedinvest are a significant part of UNIQA’s global strategy, which drives forward digital transformation, innovative technologies and future trends at the benefit of our customers. By pooling our forces, the best fintech startups can benefit from industry-related know-how and our CEE network”

says CEO of UNIQA, Andreas Brandstetter.

“The Fintech revolution in Europe is entering its next stage of development. Our task now is to support the best teams in Europe with ‘smart growth capital’ in order for them to successfully scale across Europe, and as such drive the establishment of the ‘Single European Financial Market’.

During the past years, we successfully supported the founders of N26, Wefox, Iyzico, payworks, Billie, Fincompare, Cashpresso and many others — now we’re ready to back the next wave of champions!”,

says an excited Stefan Klestil.

This article first appeared on medium