The founder of the direct bank N26, Valentin Stalf from Vienna, stands in the office of his bank.
Smartphone banking, car insurance, interest rate comparisons: German financial start-ups have had a great start to the year and attracted record sums from investors for their digital businesses. In the first quarter, German fintechs raised 686 million euros, more than twice as much as during the same period in 2018 (325 million euros). This is according to figures from the consulting firm Barkow Consulting, which dpa has seen.
According to the study, investors put around 77 percent more money into fintechs between January and March than in the previous record period, the final quarter of 2018. The sum of 686 million euros corresponds to more than half of the money collected in the entire previous year, said Managing Director Peter Barkow.
The strong start to the year was helped by significant individual injections of money into booming fintechs, while the number of actual deals fell by almost a third to 26. In January alone, the Berlin online bank N26 raised around 260 million euros. In 2018 the insurance giant Allianz had already invested in N26, which provides user-friendly banking via smartphone. In addition, sums of 100 million euros or more each went to the car insurer Friday, which prices policies according to the kilometers driven, to the insurance start-up Wefox and to Raisin, which offers investors higher interest rates abroad via its "Weltsparen" portal.
The global trend towards ever larger injections of money is also having an impact on Germany, said Barkow. "German financial start-ups have caught up and are securing large sums."
Notice: No person, organization and/or company shall disseminate or broadcast the above article on Xinhua Silk Road website without prior permission by Xinhua Silk Road.
A single purchase
