German fintech start-up SolarisBank has raised a Series C funding worth USD 67.5 (EUR 60 million). Post the funding round, solarisBank is now valued at USD 360 million (EUR 320 million). The bank doesn’t deal with any consumer product directly. It offers financial services to other fintech companies basis a set of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).
The solarisBank works in a way to assist fintech start-ups, and its services are capable of heavy lifting. It helps in building banking infrastructure for fintechs and other financial organizations.
For many of you, recognizing solarisBank is difficult because of its low-line popularity. In that case, knowing their clients might build on the familiarity front; the clientele includes Tomorrow, Insha, Penta, Kontist, and the trading app Trade Republic. In total, solarisBank touches 70 companies, with them having 400,000 clients in total.
The solarisBank started with the fundraising process back in December. However, the lag of these six months has been due to economic prospects. “A lot of investors looked at their portfolio companies and the appetite to look at something new was not there,” solarisBank CEO Roland Folz told TechCrunch in an interview. Lately, everything worked out well as half of the funding came from the existing investors.
“We originally were looking for EUR 40 million but we were overwhelmed by the interest of investors in spite of COVID,” told solarisBank Head of Strategy and Shareholder Relations Layla Qassim to TechCrunch in an interview.
The future plans of solarisBank are to make a portfolio of banking services by introducing IBANs in the most important European markets. It is believed that there shouldn’t be major obstructions in convincing potential clients outside Germany to use the banking services of solarisBank because of its established reputation and banking infrastructure.
About solarisBank
The bank offers services just like various other banks, such as opening bank accounts and issuing cards attached to those accounts. The range of services also includes payments, vouchers, cross-border transactions, and more. One new feature launched by solarisBank along with American Express is Splitpay.
The revenue generation for solarisBank from the clients is when they use the company’s APIs and enable accounts and cards. The bank also collects the interchange fees on card transactions and shares revenue with the clients.
