French neobank Qonto saw net profits surge to a record €144m in 2024, doubling the amount it posted in 2023 (€71m) and marking the scaleup’s second year of profitability, according to company accounts seen by Sifted.
The Paris-based unicorn provides business accounts for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to help them manage all things finance, from paying and getting paid to overseeing expenses, cash flow and bookkeeping.
With a price tag of €4.4bn, it is one of French tech’s most highly-valued scaleups, having raised more than €600m from high-profile investors like DST Global and Tiger Global. News of the annual results was first reported by trade publication Mind Fintech.
In 2024 Qonto posted €448.7m in revenues, a 44% increase from 2023 (€311.6m), according to the document. This was largely driven by customers’ subscriptions and commissions taken by the company on transactions processed through the platform, which reached €261.3m — a 35% jump from the previous year.
Qonto says it serves 600k customers across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, and Austria.
From payments to banking
Qonto is currently a payments’ institution, meaning it cannot offer banking services such as long-term, high-value loans. It perceives, however, interests from customer deposits, which it places in the books of partner banks. In 2024 revenues from interests reached €136m, a 24.5% increase from 2023.
This is set to increase in the near future as the scaleup recently announced it has applied for a banking license in France. This will let it leverage customer deposits to finance credit lines to other customers, meaning it can offer larger loans with higher interest rates, as well as savings and investment products.
“We believe we’ll be more profitable as a bank than as a payments institution,” said CEO Alexandre Prot at the time. “We’ll be able to have more customers and serve them even better, be more agile and flexible, and not depend on third-party partners.”
The scaleup expects it will be a few years before it is granted the license.
M&A
In 2024 Qonto acquired Paris-based accounting automation platform Regate for €35.7m, according to the document. This increased operating expenses by €14.4m over the year due to administrative costs and to the number of staff growing, while boosting revenues by €2.8m.
“This operation enabled Qonto to improve its financial tools for SMEs and to introduce an offer targeting accountancy firms,” states the document.
Overall operating expenses increased to €276.3m in 2024, €48m more than in 2023, which was mostly due to the company’s growing workforce. The scaleup currently has 1,600 employees.
Want to learn more about Qonto? We recently hosted Alexandre Prot on Startup Europe where he spoke about Qonto's banking licence, how it's using AI to tackle fraud and what lies ahead on the path to an IPO.
