Gothenburg-based subscription management software tool Minna Technologies has raised €15.5m (£14m) in Series B fundraising led by Element Ventures, with support from MiddleGame Ventures, Nineyards Equity and Visa (NYSE:V), as it aims to expand its open banking technology across the world.
The 2016-founded Minna enables customers to manage subscription services via their bank’s app. Instead of spending hours on the phone or going through web pages trying to cancel a subscription, Minna can terminate it at the push of a button. This ensures that no extra money is taken from the account as well as cuts the data ties between the merchant and customer. The platform can also notify customers when a free trial is about to end to prevent them from being charged, and facilitates utilities switching to help customers find better deals.
Through partnerships with European retail banks including Swedbank and ING, Minna has saved more than 40 million euros on behalf of the bank’s retail customers.
We strongly believe in a vision where banks develop their checking account offerings into “connected and intelligent” platforms and where retail clients are able to interact in many more ways than in the recent past. Minna delivers this future and allows banks to offer a rich subscription management offering for our digital lives,” said Pascal Bouvier, Managing Partner, MiddleGame Ventures.
Demand for Minna’s product has escalated as a result of the growth in the subscription economy, which has increased over 350% since 2012 thanks to the rise of online streaming, entertainment platforms, on-demand shopping platforms and app services. However, attempting to end a subscription can be time-consuming for the consumer and costly for banks in terms of the hours spent on the phone attempting to cancel a continuous payment.
“Over the past four years the subscription economy has exploded from Spotify and Netflix to even iPhones and cars. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for consumers to keep track of the payments and harder for banks to handle inquiries to shut them down,” said Joakim Sjöblom, CEO and co-founder of Minna Technologies.
