Vilnius-based fintech company kevin. has raised 65 million dollars in a Series A funding round led by Accel. The round saw participation from Eurazeo and all its existing investors including OTB Ventures, Speedinvest, OpenOcean, and Global Paytech Ventures along with Founder of 20VC Harry Stebbings, CEO & Co-founder of Supercell Ilkka Paananen, Ex-CEO of Venmo Amitabh Jhawar, and other angels.
The startup company had collected a $10M seed just six months ago which refers to a total of 77 million dollars in funding. Lithuanian company will use the capital from its latest round to boost its growth on its mission to make account-to-account payments the primary method to pay and get paid online and offline.
Julien Bek, Principal at Accel, states, “Across Europe, merchants still pay €60B in fees every year to intermediaries to get money from A to B, why is this still the case in a digital world where no physical money is moved anymore..? For years, we’ve been hearing about the promise of Open Banking to rescue merchants and consumers but it’s only now that we are seeing true disruption at play.
kevin. proved three key things that we thought impossible: building a network covering 85%+ of banks across Europe without using screen scrapping, beating credit card conversions at checkout and creating a solution that works for both online AND offline payments.”
From the annonuncement on Accel’s website co-written by Cecilia Wang, Julien Bek and Luca Bocchio:
“When we met Tadas, Pavel and the kevin. team in Vilnius, we were immediately intrigued by their proposition. Tadas and Pavel had seen the inefficiencies in the payments value chain firsthand while working in banking and payments. When PSD2 came into place, they instantly saw the potential in leveraging open banking to create a better infrastructure layer for PSPs, merchants and consumers. A2A payments have had high penetration in certain European markets that have developed their own networks (e.g. iDeal in the Netherlands, Sofort in Germany etc.).
However, we’ve yet to see a player able to build a strong infrastructure layer with native bank integrations European-wide without relying on third parties and screen scraping, which drastically impacts reliability. kevin.’s product spans all channels, from online and mobile to offline point of sale (POS). For merchants, using kevin. can mean more than 50% savings in transaction fees, with the huge added benefit of instant settlement. Bank payments also mean stronger authentication, reducing the risk of fraud and painful chargeback fees.”
kevin. raises $65M to bring A2A payments to POS terminals
kevin., the Lithuanian fintech startup providing an advanced A2A (account-to-account) payment infrastructure to replace costly card transactions, today announces that it has secured $65 million in Series A funding.
The round was led by Accel, with participation from Eurazeo and all existing investors, including OTB Ventures, Speedinvest, Open Ocean, and Global Paytech Ventures. Additional investors in the round include Harry Stebbings, Founder of 20VC, Ilkka Paananen, CEO & Co-founder of Supercell, Amitabh Jhawar, Ex-CEO of Venmo, and other angel investors.
The Series A funding comes just six months after the company secured its $10 million seed round and brings kevin.’s total funding to $77 million. Since the seed round, the team has now grown to more than 170 employees working from 30 countries and is set to almost double by 2023.
Pavel Sokolovas, COO and Co-founder at kevin., said: “When you have a game-changing product, time is the most important asset, and our new investor Accel values time just as we do. We have closed a huge $65M round in just two months between the NDA and a signed Investment agreement. We are very happy to work with Accel, and that synergy and looking in the same direction helped deliver such a smooth and fast round closing. We are looking forward to achieving big goals together.”
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Vilnius, kevin. has successfully taken advantage of the new opportunities that open banking has brought. The company has a clear mission — to offer innovative and convenient payment solutions that remove unnecessary intermediaries in the payment process.
kevin. has already proven itself as the leader in web and in-app A2A payments in the European Economic Area, where it currently has the broadest PSD2 bank API coverage on the market. Recently, the startup has also stepped into POS terminal payments in physical stores by introducing the first-ever NFC account-to-account payments solution with a seamless user experience that is comparable to a card payment experience.
The uniqueness of kevin.’s A2A in-store payments solution lies in the fact that it does not require any changes on the merchant’s technical side: it uses existing POS terminal infrastructure and widely used and most intuitive NFC payment technology.
Tadas Tamosiunas, CEO and Co-founder at kevin., said: “We are thrilled to receive such overwhelming support from everyone around us. Bringing Accel on board will help us achieve great results and grow even more. We will use this investment to continue expanding our international team of experts and developing products that are changing the payment industry. We have big plans for the future.
I am confident that our full suite of next-generation infrastructure for web, mobile and in-store payments will help businesses gain a competitive edge. Also, given the fact that the implementation of the A2A in-store payments solution is quick and cost-effective, we forecast its rapid scale: by the end of this year, we aim to secure 35% coverage of POS payment terminals across Europe and seek to achieve over 85% by the end of 2023, which is equivalent to the current coverage of major card schemes.”
Luca Bocchio, Partner at Accel, said: “Tadas, Pavel and the kevin. team are powering the future of payments with their next-generation payments infrastructure. Offering a fast, seamless payment experience with reduced costs and increased authentication rates, the time for A2A payments is now and kevin. has already had impressive momentum with its offering. With the launch of its unique POS payments product, the opportunity ahead is huge, and we’re looking forward to partnering with the team on their journey!”
Chloé Giard, Eurazeo Investment Director, said: “We have been following all the innovations in the account-to-account payment market for a while, and we have been truly impressed by kevin.’s uniqueness and global ambition. Since 2018, they have laid the technological foundation for a European-wide payment infrastructure scheme, changing the game in terms of speed, transparency, and fees. Over the past few months, kevin.’s commercial hypergrowth has proved the strength of its value proposition.”
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