Europe is home to some of the world’s biggest and most valuable fintech companies, and one of the largest and most developed fintech ecosystems globally.

Throughout the years, founders across the region have consistently managed to attract investors’ interest, successfully securing a staggering US$26.3 billon in 2021, a figure that represents more than double what was raised in 2020 at US$10.3 billion, according to data from CB Insights.

While many of Europe’s biggest fintech companies are household names, the continent also hosts some very promising younger ventures.

Technology-oriented publication Wired has released its selection of 2022’s 100 hottest startups in Europe across ten major cities.

Ten startups were selected in London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Lisbon, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, Helsinki and Dublin, and were recognized for their ingenuity, growth prospects and the excitement they’ve generated among local entrepreneurs and investors.

Unsurprisingly, London had the most fintech companies within its top ten startups list with four fintech companies. London is followed by Berlin and Barcelona with three fintech startups each.

In total, 16 fintech and insurtech companies made it into this year’s list. These companies operate in different areas ranging from small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) financing and teen banking, to payments and earned wage access.

Today, we look at the fintech and insurtech startups part of Wired’s 2022 Hottest Startups in Europe list, categorizing them by the city they are based in.

London (4)

Sylvera

Founded in 2020, Sylvera develops tools designed to track the performance of carbon offsets. The company leverages proprietary data and machine learning (ML) technology to produce the most comprehensive and accessible insights and market intelligence on carbon projects, which are delivered through an online platform.

Hokodo

Founded in 2018, Hokodo is a fintech startup offering a buy now, pay later (BNPL) solution for businesses. The platform allows B2B merchants to offer credit terms to their business customers instantly, even on their first purchase. In turn, customers benefit from additional payment terms through a frictionless checkout experience.

Qumata

Founded in 2017, Qumata, formerly known as HealthyHealth, aims to transform insurance underwriting, providing a faster way to access individual health forecasts without losing accuracy of traditional questionnaires or medical exams. The solution unlocks insights into an individual’s current and future health and mortality risks, and allows life and health insurers to create a faster, more customer-centric underwriting journey.

Gaia

Founded in 2019, Gaia is the world’s first IVF insurance provider. The company helps customers plan, pay for and protect their IVF journey, focusing on making IVF more accessible for more people. Using data from over 1 million previous treatments, Gaia predicts one’s chances of success across up to six IVF rounds, and then provides them with build personalized insurance plans.

Berlin (3)

Moss

Launched in mid-2020, Moss provides corporate credit cards for startups and digital companies in Germany. The cards works alongside a technology-driven platform for holistic spend management. Companies can choose to use Moss as an all-in-one integrated solution for their expense management or to build a customized modular solution based on their specific needs.

Mondu

Founded in 2021, Mondu is a B2B payments startup that aims to simplify the financial lives of SMEs. Mondu’s BNPL solution for B2B helps merchants and marketplaces improve conversion rates and protect themselves against default risk, while alleviating the operational burden of collection and dunning.

Pile

Founded in 2022, Pile is a “crypto-as-a-service” provider that allows businesses to easily integrate crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) products to their existing infrastructure. The company offers a flexible, fast and compliant way for businesses to bring new products to market, open up new revenue streams, attract new customers and increase customer retention. At the moment, Pile offers three products: non-custodial wallets, access to DeFi, and fiat to crypto exchange.

Barcelona (3)

Hubuc

Founded in 2019, Hubuc is an embedded finance startup that allows businesses to integrate financial services capabilities into their products. From a single API and with just one contract, Hubuc covers compliance and provides access to fintech and banking services including payments acceptance, payments processing, physical and virtual credit cards issuance, and white label solutions.

Vitaance

Founded in 2021, Vitaance is an insurtech company focused on life insurance. Vitaance’s product combines a life and disability insurance for businesses with a 360° wellbeing platform for their employees. This way, companies can offer a life insurance to their employees that not only protects them, but also empowers them to live better every day and engage with their peers at work. This is done through a gamified system of challenges and rewards.

Payflow

Founded in 2020, Payflow is the developer of financial software designed to instantly collect the portion of workers’ salary corresponding to their work. The company’s software provides employees access to salaries and other benefits instantly without the need for their organizations to have cash flow in the middle of the month.

Paris (2)

Kard

Founded in 2018, Kard offers a digital banking offering for adolescents. Kids have one mobile app which allows them to receive and spend pocket money. Parents have another app that allows them to set spending limits and understand their offspring’s shopping habits. Kard claims more than 200,000 families on its platform.

Greenly

Founded in 2019, Greenly is the developer of a carbon tracking technology aimed to allow everyone to track their carbon footprint. The company’s technology automates the analysis of data collection by integrating with accounting or billing data of various software solutions, enabling it to calculate the emission scopes in real-time and generate carbon reports.

Lisbon (2)

Anchorage Digital

Founded in 2017, Anchorage Digital is a global regulated crypto platform that provides institutions with integrated digital asset financial services and infrastructure solutions including custody, staking, trading and financing. Anchorage Digital works with a global roster of institutional clients including crypto protocols, investment funds, banks, fintech companies and family offices, and is valued at over US$3 billion.

Coverflex

Founded in 2019, Coverflex is a compensation management solution that helps companies manage every part of compensation beyond salary, including benefits, insurance, meal allowance and exclusive discounts. For companies, it’s a way to easily give people more options and value. For employees, it’s the opportunity to create a custom compensation package that anyone can spend as they choose.

Stockholm (2)

Treyd

Founded in 2019, Treyd is a BNPL service for international supply chains. The service pays customers’ supplier invoices and lets them pay up to 120 days later in return, helping thus clients free up working capital. Treyd handles the credit assessment through a carefully developed model primarily based on the customer’s financial position and external rating data.

Doconomy

Founded in 2018, Doconomy is a leading provider of applied impact solutions serving banks, brands, and consumers. Doconomy’s impact calculation methodology calculates the carbon impact of every single financial transaction, product, lifestyle and corporation, allowing consumers to visualize their impact, receive insights to reduce consumption and be rewarded financially with refunds and other incentives.

Featured image credit: Edited from Unsplash