INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Fintech startup N26 is raising a Series D round of $300 million
Following this new funding round, the company is now valued at $2.7 billion
is building a retail bank from scratch
The company lets you open a bank account and get a card in just a few minutes
You can then control everything from your phone or computer
funding round ten months ago
I talked with N26 co-founder and CEO Valentin Stalf about this, and there are several reasons why raising money made sense.First, N26 is a
very different company now compared to early 2018
The user base has tripled and people are using their N26 accounts more and more
In other words, N26 is in great shape and it made sense to grab more money before expanding to new markets around the world.N26 is currently
live in 24 European markets and has 2.3 million customers
The company plans to expand to the U.S
in the coming months as well as other markets around the world
This interview has been slightly edited for brevity and clarity.TechCrunch: Your list of investors is becoming more and more global
Does it mean that, in addition to the U.S., we can expect other countries and other regions as wellValentin Stalf: Absolutely
Our goal now for the next couple of years is to transform N26 from being a European company to being a global company
We started in Germany and Austria as you know
We would like to bring N26 to four to six new markets outside of the U.S
and Europe in the next couple of years
But this year is really about the U.S
and then by the end of the year one more market or a couple of markets probably
But we see the opportunity to take the business global
Does it mean that the financials of the company are looking good Are you making money and from whatStalf: Two things led to the success of
worked on the profitability of our company
So one is really from card transactions and the interchange fee
Second is our subscription model
And then you have the daily usage of financial products, such as overdraft, savings and consumer credit and these things that we have on the
German market, the French market
entire lineup of products across all your marketsStalf: I think we want to internationalize existing products to new markets and bring our
is really to innovate more on the product
The big update that is coming out in the next two months is really about sharing a space, creating a shared account either long term with
challenged over the last couple of weeks
And I think we were lucky in terms of when we raised funding
Our company managed to do incredibly well in the last year in terms of profitability and growth
How do you see N26 in a couple of years as a product, as a company and as a brandStalf: I think we have the opportunity to really build a
business with a hundred million customers globally
We will open a couple of offices throughout the next year in Europe and maybe somewhere else in the world
