London-based Fintech Farm, a startup that sells technology to medium-sized banks in emerging markets to build digital tools, has raised $32m in funding.
The capital comes from an initial Series B round, which was led by London-based venture firm Nordstar, and an extension Series B round led by the London Stock Exchange-listed Bank of Georgia.
The founding team comprises one of the founders of Ukrainian neobank Monobank Dmytro Dubilet, former KPMG M&A exec Nick Bezkrovnyy and Alexander Vityaz, the founder of cloud-based operating system provider Corezoid.
The company previously raised a $7.4m round in 2022 led by Flyer One Ventures and Solid with participation from TA Ventures, Jiji, u.ventures and AVentures Capital.
Building banks for emerging markets
Fintech Farm — which launched in 2020 — partners with medium-sized banks in emerging markets looking to build neobank apps but lacking digital know-how. Dubilet says the startup differs from other banking-as-a-service (BaaS) players, as it focuses on providing operational support rather than regulatory or infrastructure services.
“There are some banking-as-a-service (BaaS) providers that give you a licence and infrastructure,” Dubilet tells Sifted, ”But we have great technology — which we call ‘a neobank in a box’ — that covers everything you need to build a big and profitable digital bank.”
The core features it offers users are reminiscent of many of those offered by neobanks in Europe — “debit and credit cards, buy now pay later, stock investment; the standard products you’d expect from a retail bank”.
It’s so far launched in Azerbaijan, where it’s partnered with a local bank to create an app-based offering to over 1m users, it says. In Vietnam, it’s worked with the country’s Orient Commercial Joint Stock Bank to create Liobank. Fintech Farm is compensated by the banks it partners with on a performance basis linked to the number of customers and revenues they generate for their clients.
It’s now focused on building out a fintech product in India, where it’s hoping to increase consumer access to credit.
“India is one of the markets you must be in these days,” says Bezkrovnyy, ”The competition is quite intense there but now is a good time for us to enter.”
He cites the huge uptake of a digital payment system in the country named the Unified Payments Interface, which makes it easier for Fintech Farm to partner with local banks to offer lending products.
B2B fintech continues to reign supreme
Fintech Farm’s funding round is the latest sign that Europe’s tech investors are focused on fintechs building B2B business models.
Last month, Paris-based Payflows raised a €25m funding round for its CFO-focused accounting platform. That followed a $24m investment into London banking-as-a-service fintech Griffin from backers including MassMutual Ventures, Nordic Ninja and Breega in March.
While later-stage consumer fintechs like Monzo are able to raise megarounds, European fintechs catering to business clients have raised the biggest share of the funding in the sector so far this year. $2.1bn went to B2B fintechs in the first quarter of 2024 according to Dealroom — close to double of the $1.2bn funnelled towards consumer fintechs.
