Technology

SMB-focused Finom closes €115M as European fintech heats up

While funding may be scarce for some, Europe’s fastest-growing startups still have their pick.

The latest beneficiary of that investor appetite is Finom, a five-year-old, Amsterdam-based challenger bank that targets small and medium-size businesses across Europe. The company, which claims to have doubled its revenue in 2024, just closed a €115 million Series C equity round (around $133 million), TechCrunch learned exclusively. This comes only a few weeks after it landed $105 million in growth funding from General Catalyst, its backer since 2021.

Finom’s business model centers on providing European SMBs with a financial platform that combines banking, invoicing, and a growing range of features, including AI-enabled accounting. “Because theoretically, entrepreneurs don’t need to have an accountant at all,” said CEO Andrey Petrov (on the far left in the picture).

The startup’s ambitious growth targets reflect this vision. While Petrov says Finom’s goal of having one million business customers by the end of 2026 is motivational and not set in stone, its new funding makes that target slightly more attainable.

This belief that Finom could serve a fair share of Europe’s 26 million SMBs is also reflected in its Series C. The round was led by AVP (formerly AXA Venture Partners), with participation from new investor Headline (formerly e.ventures) through Headline Growth. Existing investors Cogito Capital, General Catalyst, and Northzone also joined the round.

Despite this momentum, the startup may find it easier to win clients over from legacy banks — its current plan — than from other fintechs.

Even after its Series C brought its total funding to roughly $346 million, Finom has far less external capital than Monzo, N26, Revolut, or Wise, which all raised more than $1 billion. Its funding to date is more comparable to the approximately $700 million raised by Finom’s closest peer, French unicorn Qonto — though the comparison isn’t perfect.

What makes Finom’s funding structure particularly interesting is its non-traditional component. Unlike typical VCs, General Catalyst took no equity in Finom with its non-traditional round; the capital from its Customer Value Fund (CVF) can only be used for growth, which is how it plans to get its money back.

Combined with the Series B, this non-traditional funding round would have been enough for the Dutch company to reach profitability, according to chairman and co-founder Kos Stiskin (on the far right in the picture). But Finom was also hoping to raise equity by the end of the year, and get a “good and nice” new valuation in the process. What it didn’t anticipate was closing both deals so close to each other.

“One took longer than expected, and one was much faster than expected,” Stiskin told TechCrunch. He declined to disclose the updated valuation, stating only that it is twice the (also undisclosed) valuation associated with its 2024 $54 million Series B.

The timing may have worked in Finom’s favor. Since the company doesn’t publicize its unit economics — apart from its user base of 125,000 — the fact that General Catalyst took a look under the hood likely helped boost interest and speed up the funding. That vote of confidence — and its direct interest in recouping its money — may have been the signal that got investors to hurry up and write checks.

Beyond the signaling effects, getting the Customer Value Fund to finance Finom’s marketing efforts without giving up equity may seem like a good deal for its Series C backers — which include General Catalyst itself.

However, the Series C will also fund riskier efforts than customer acquisition through marketing.

According to Petrov, one of its uses could be strategic, opportunistic acquisitions that would allow it to expand either its customer base or its product portfolio. That represents a shift in strategy, given that Finom has only acquired one company so far — in 2022, when it purchased Kapaga, a British cross-border payment service when Finom was considering expanding into the U.K.

Since then, Finom has shifted its focus to some of Europe’s largest markets, where it sees greater opportunity than in the U.K. The company believes these markets have fewer challenger banks competing for SMBs and that traditional banks are doing a poor job serving small businesses.

Like many neobanks, however, it only operates with an electronic money institution (EMI) license in most of its main markets: the Netherlands, France, Italy, and Spain (though not Germany, where it partnered with Solaris, which has a full banking license).

Despite these licensing limitations, it was able to add lending in the Netherlands, which it sees as a testing ground for its credit offering — something Petrov sees as a must-have for any fintech and for business customers.

This lending initiative is also in line with Finom’s efforts to expand its product line both horizontally — with deposits and loans — and vertically, “starting from a banking account and ending in paying taxes, reports, and everything.” AI is involved as well, and not just on the product side.

The company is also leveraging AI internally. With a team of 500, it expects to make some business- and tech-related hires, though not so much to scale its operations. “We’re adding some people, but mostly we’re adding new types of AI agents to work with internally,” Petrov said. “So we are hiring less than we need, and we see good output in terms of using AI and AI agents to automate part of [our] routine tasks.”

Finom’s leadership structure has also evolved. The split of duties between Finom’s four co-founders has gone through some changes over the years, with Petrov now the sole CEO — a role he once shared with Yakov Novikov, who is now an advisor alongside Oleg Laguta.

The three of them previously created Russian digital bank Modulbank. But this time, Finom’s focus is on Europe and its entrepreneurs who are, in Stiskin’s words, “the backbone of the European Union economy.”

Technology

Pintarnya raises $16.7M to power jobs and financial services in Indonesia

Pintarnya, an Indonesian employment platform that goes beyond job matching by offering financial services along with full-time and side-gig opportunities, said it has raised a $16.7 million Series A round.

The funding was led by Square Peg with participation from existing investors Vertex Venture Southeast Asia & India and East Ventures.

Ghirish Pokardas, Nelly Nurmalasari, and Henry Hendrawan founded Pintarnya in 2022 to tackle two of the biggest challenges Indonesians face daily: earning enough and borrowing responsibly.

“Traditionally, mass workers in Indonesia find jobs offline through job fairs or word of mouth, with employers buried in paper applications and candidates rarely hearing back. For borrowing, their options are often limited to family/friend or predatory lenders with harsh collection practices,” Henry Hendrawan, co-founder of Pintarnya, told TechCrunch. “We digitize job matching with AI to make hiring faster and we provide workers with safer, healthier lending options — designed around what they can reasonably afford, rather than pushing them deeper into debt.”

Around 59% of Indonesia’s 150 million workforce is employed in the informal sector, highlighting the difficulties these workers encounter in accessing formal financial services because they lack verifiable income and official employment documentation.

Pintarnya tackles this challenge by partnering with asset-backed lenders to offer secured loans, using collateral such as gold, electronics, or vehicles, Hendrawan added.

Since its seed funding in 2022, the platform currently serves over 10 million job seeker users and 40,000 employers nationwide. Its revenue has increased almost fivefold year-over-year and expects to reach break-even by the end of the year, Hendrawn noted. Pintarnya primarily serves users aged 21 to 40, most of whom have a high school education or a diploma below university level. The startup aims to focus on this underserved segment, given the large population of blue-collar and informal workers in Indonesia.

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“Through the journey of building employment services, we discovered that our users needed more than just jobs — they needed access to financial services that traditional banks couldn’t provide,” said Hendrawan. “We digitize job matching with AI to make hiring faster and we provide workers with safer, healthier lending options — designed around what they can reasonably afford, rather than pushing them deeper into debt.”

Pintarnya Founders Press Kit — image credits: Pintarnya (Founders of Pintarnya Ghirish Pokardas, Nelly Nurmalasari, and Henry Hendrawan)

While Indonesia already has job platforms like JobStreet, Kalibrr, and Glints, these primarily cater to white-collar roles, which represent only a small portion of the workforce, according to Hendrawan. Pintarnya’s platform is designed specifically for blue-collar workers, offering tailored experiences such as quick-apply options for walk-in interviews, affordable e-learning on relevant skills, in-app opportunities for supplemental income, and seamless connections to financial services like loans.

The same trend is evident in Indonesia’s fintech sector, which similarly caters to white-collar or upper-middle-class consumers. Conventional credit scoring models for loans, which rely on steady monthly income and bank account activity, often leave blue-collar workers overlooked by existing fintech providers, Hendrawan explained.

When asked about which fintech services are most in demand, Hendrawan mentioned, “Given their employment status, lending is the most in-demand financial service for Pintarnya’s users today. We are planning to ‘graduate’ them to micro-savings and investments down the road through innovative products with our partners.”

The new funding will enable Pintarnya to strengthen its platform technology and broaden its financial service offerings through strategic partnerships. With most Indonesian workers employed in blue-collar and informal sectors, the co-founders see substantial growth opportunities in the local market. Leveraging their extensive experience in managing businesses across Southeast Asia, they are also open to exploring regional expansion when the timing is right.

“Our vision is for Pintarnya to be the everyday companion that empowers Indonesians to not only make ends meet today, but also plan, grow, and upgrade their lives tomorrow … In five years, we see Pintarnya as the go-to super app for Indonesia’s workers, not just for earning income, but as a trusted partner throughout their life journey,” Hendrawan said. “We want to be the first stop when someone is looking for work, a place that helps them upgrade their skills, and a reliable guide as they make financial decisions.”

Technology

OpenAI warns against SPVs and other ‘unauthorized’ investments

In a new blog post, OpenAI warns against “unauthorized opportunities to gain exposure to OpenAI through a variety of means,” including special purpose vehicles, known as SPVs.

“We urge you to be careful if you are contacted by a firm that purports to have access to OpenAI, including through the sale of an SPV interest with exposure to OpenAI equity,” the company writes. The blog post acknowledges that “not every offer of OpenAI equity […] is problematic” but says firms may be “attempting to circumvent our transfer restrictions.”

“If so, the sale will not be recognized and carry no economic value to you,” OpenAI says.

Investors have increasingly used SPVs (which pool money for one-off investments) as a way to buy into hot AI startups, prompting other VCs to criticize them as a vehicle for “tourist chumps.”

Business Insider reports that OpenAI isn’t the only major AI company looking to crack down on SPVs, with Anthropic reportedly telling Menlo Ventures it must use its own capital, not an SPV, to invest in an upcoming round.

Technology

Meta partners with Midjourney on AI image and video models

Meta is partnering with Midjourney to license the startup’s AI image and video generation technology, Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang announced Friday in a post on Threads. Wang says Meta’s research teams will collaborate with Midjourney to bring its technology into future AI models and products.

“To ensure Meta is able to deliver the best possible products for people it will require taking an all-of-the-above approach,” Wang said. “This means world-class talent, ambitious compute roadmap, and working with the best players across the industry.”

The Midjourney partnership could help Meta develop products that compete with industry-leading AI image and video models, such as OpenAI’s Sora, Black Forest Lab’s Flux, and Google’s Veo. Last year, Meta rolled out its own AI image generation tool, Imagine, into several of its products, including Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Meta also has an AI video generation tool, Movie Gen, that allows users to create videos from prompts.

The licensing agreement with Midjourney marks Meta’s latest deal to get ahead in the AI race. Earlier this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on a hiring spree for AI talent, offering some researchers compensation packages worth upwards of $100 million. The social media giant also invested $14 billion in Scale AI, and acquired the AI voice startup Play AI.

Meta has held talks with several other leading AI labs about other acquisitions, and Zuckerberg even spoke with Elon Musk about joining his $97 billion takeover bid of OpenAI (Meta ultimately did not join the offer, and OpenAI denied Musk’s bid).

While the terms of Meta’s deal with Midjourney remain unknown, the startup’s CEO, David Holz, said in a post on X that his company remains independent with no investors; Midjourney is one of the few leading AI model developers that has never taken on outside funding. At one point, Meta talked with Midjourney about acquiring the startup, according to Upstarts Media.

Midjourney was founded in 2022 and quickly became a leader in the AI image generation space for its realistic, unique style. By 2023, the startup was reportedly on pace to generate $200 million in revenue. The startup sells subscriptions starting at $10 per month. It offers pricier tiers, which offer more AI image generations, that cost as much as $120 per month. In June, the startup released its first AI video model, V1.

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Meta’s partnership with Midjourney comes just two months after the startup was sued by Disney and Universal, alleging that it trained AI image models on copyrighted works. Several AI model developers — including Meta — face similar allegations from copyright holders, however, recent court cases pertaining to AI training data have sided with tech companies.

Got a sensitive tip or confidential documents? We’re reporting on the inner workings of the AI industry — from the companies shaping its future to the people impacted by their decisions. Reach out to Rebecca Bellan at [email protected] and Maxwell Zeff at [email protected]. For secure communication, you can contact us via Signal at @rebeccabellan.491 and @mzeff.88.

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