Former executives of French fintech unicorns Qonto and Swile have raised €5m for their new startup Pivot, according to two people with knowledge of the deal.
Berlin-headquartered VC firm Visionaries Club is leading the fintech's first fundraising round, with participation from London’s micro fund Cocoa VC and a number of French business angels. The €5m round gives Pivot a pre-money valuation of €20m, according to the sources.
Pivot’s founders are Marc-Antoine Lacroix, former chief product officer of business banking startup Qonto, and Romain Libeau, who held the same role at employee benefits fintech Swile. Sifted understands that Lacroix and Libeau are building a B2B fintech focusing on procurement — ie. business spending on goods and services.
Existing startups focusing on this area include US-based Zip, which recently raised a $100m Series C from Y Combinator, CRV and Tiger Global; and Omnea in the UK, which is bootstrapped.
Pivot adds to a growing list of CFO stack startups founded by operators in Europe. Just last week, Capchase ex-general manager Henrik Grim announced that he and a group of other European operators were building a new startup, Mimo, focused on automating business payments and cashflow.
Visionaries Club and Cocoa VC declined to comment.
Pivot’s founders declined to comment.
