The company intends to utilise the funding to reach its goal to become the finance solution for one million SMEs and freelancers by 2025
The funding round is led by new investors Tiger Global and TCV. (Credit: Scott Graham on Unsplash)
French business banking startup Qonto has raised €486m in a Series D funding round that valued the company at €4.4bn.
Led by new investors Tiger Global and TCV, the funding round saw participation from Alkeon, Eurazeo, KKR, Insight Partners, Exor Seeds, Guillaume Pousaz, Gaingels and Ashley Flucas.
Valar, Alven, DST Global and Tencent are the existing investors who also took part in the latest financing round.
Founded in 2017, Qonto is a challenger bank that offers business finance solution for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and freelancers.
Currently, it has more than 220,000 clients across four markets that include France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.
The French fintech company intends to utilise the latest funding to reach its goal to become the finance solution for one million SMEs and freelancers by 2025.
Qonto co-founder and CEO Alexandre Prot said: “Since our launch in 2017, we’ve constantly strived to create the finance solution that energizes SMEs and freelancers, empowering them to achieve more.
“This new Series D funding round is an amazing opportunity for us to accelerate our hyper-growth trajectory by investing in our product, our customer service and our power to attract new talents.
“This funding round reveals the incredible dynamism of the French and European Tech ecosystem.”
To enhance its offerings to clients, Qonto plans to continue the expansion of its product offer through in-house development, new strategic partnerships and potential acquisitions.
It also targets to further grow its market penetration across Germany, Italy and Spain and new markets. To strengthen its European presence, the challenger bank plans to launch new markets by 2023.
Over the next two years, Qonto is expected to invest more than €100m in each of the three markets, Germany, Italy and Spain.
It also plans to quadruple its team to more than 2,000 by 2025, with 50% of the new recruits to be based outside of France.
Qonto expects to see 75% of new clients coming from outside France in 2025.