Earlier this March, Reykjavik-based personal finance software startup Meniga announced they had received a €1 million investment from the Dutch venture capital fund Velocity. Following the investment, Velocity‘s representative, Allard Luchsinger, will become a member of the board at Meniga.
Velocity capital, owned by Dutch financier Willem Willemstein, invests solely in financial technology companies so their other investment have possible strategic alignment capabilities with Meniga. This announcement follows another smaller investment from Swiss company Crealogix AG valued at €500,000. Crealogix is Meniga‘s partner company in Germany and Switzerland.
According to Meniga, this new capital will be used to finance further rapid growth as well as increase business and product development. During the summer of 2013 Meniga received an investment of around €5 million from Icelandic VC fund Frumtak and the Investment fund Kjölfesta which is mostly owned by Icelandic pension funds.
Meniga was founded in 2009 by Georg Ludviksson and brothers Viggo Asgeirsson and Asgeir Asgeirsson. The company is founded on the idea of helping homes have a better overview of their financial situation through IT solutions with direct access to personal bank information. The product is sold B2B so it is the relevant bank which purchases the solution and offers it to his clients.
The Icelandic banks were quick to adopt this innovative way of helping their clients and Meniga’s solution is offered by all major banks in Iceland today. Building on that success they quickly were able to enter other European markets. Revenues grew tenfold between 2011 and 2012 and grew again 75% between 2012 and 2013 up to around €4,5 million.
Meniga is a market leader in personal home finance software and has 17 clients in 13 countries, mostly located in Europe with around 15 million users. The company today has 75 employees located in their R&D center in Reykjavik, their sales office in Stockholm and their recently opened London office.
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Óli Örn Eiriksson is Head of Economic Development at the City of Reykjavik and occasionally writes about the Reykjavik startup scene and exciting economic developments in Reykjavik at oliorn.
Top photo: New Meniga Employees (photo credit: Meniga)
