Swan Secures €42M to Expand Embedded Finance Across Europe

Swan, a French fintech company specializing in integrated finance, has just unveiled the second part of its Series B, amounting to 42 million euros. The round was led by Eight Roads Ventures, a new entrant, followed by the historical ones: Lakestar, Accel, Creandum, Hexa and Bpifrance, via its Digital Venture fund.

This second round completes the first stage of this round which took place in September 2023. That is, 37 million euros raised from Lakestar and its historical investors.

Swan was created in 2019 by the trio Nicolas Benady, Nicolas Saison and Mathieu Breton within the startup studio e-founders.

Currently, via its 250 partners/Distributors in France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and soon in Italy, the Banking-as-a-Service platform attracts an amount of 1.5 billion euros per month.

Would Swan dream of becoming a 360° European BtoB banking services platform?

In any case, the French nugget that took off within the founders (hexa) galaxy is clearly giving itself the means to achieve its ambitions. It has just revealed the complement of its Series B with a €42 million fundraising led by Eight Roads Ventures, with the participation of historical investors Lakestar, Accel, Creandum, Hexa and Bpifrance, via its Digital Venture fund.

“Eight Roads Ventures had shown signs of interest in September 2023 during the €37 million round. They had been following us for 18 years. At the end of 2024, we felt that we still had a lot of growth potential ahead of us and that it was the right time to bring them into the capital and our historical investors followed suit,” said Nicolas Benady, Founder & CEO of Swan.

But what exactly is the fintech company Swan doing to have managed to raise some 79 million euros in a year and a half from investors, even though the fundraising context for startups is considered difficult?

” Swan provides professional accounts like Qonto or Revolut Business except that to open a Swan account, there is no Swan app. We have an indirect distribution channel that relies on our partners. Our products, bank accounts, Mastercard bank cards, Iban, are distributed in white label with the logo of our partners. Our banking services are fully integrated via API within our customers’ applications (Editor’s note: embedded finance). For example, we are integrated within the Uber app for drivers, within the HR platform, Lucca, or the accounting tech, Pennylane… “

As early as 2019, when it was created by serial entrepreneur Nicolas Benady (founder of Limonetik for example or who participated in the creation of Price Minister alongside Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet, in the capital of Swan), Swan planned to deploy the best product on the market allowing any developer to embed their API within their platform.

And, in the last few months, those that separated this fundraising from the previous one, Swan has spread its wings particularly well:

At the moment, Swan has 250 partners (compared to 100 in September 2023), representing 57,000 professional accounts (compared to 12,000 in September 2023) for a total amount of its transactions via its partners of 1.5 billion euros per month (compared to 618 million per month in September 2023).

A growth driven by that of its partners like Pennylane, but also by the international which has been worked on in particular over the past 12 months. ” 50% of the new customers that were signed last year are international even if this does not represent 50% of our turnover ” Turnover that Swan does not reveal.

Swan is now present in France, Spain and Germany. Over the past year, it has also expanded in the Netherlands and should soon offer its services in Italy, plus, potentially, a new region.

Swan has an Electronic Money Institution license issued by the ACPR allowing it to offer a French IBAN. For other countries, it has chosen “free establishment”. Understand that it opens branches in the target countries, requests the various licenses & approvals depending on the country and offers local IBANs.

“Obviously, each time, we have to comply with local legislation and report to the tax and regulatory authorities…” The Italian office is already established, the Swan product has not yet been officially launched.

This growth on a scale will continue in order to make Swan, surely, the leader in the sector. “We will also deploy our banking services. Today we offer accounts, cards and IBANs but we could go on to other services. With the ambition of becoming, why not, a major European bank.”

In the next services that could be set up this year, Swan plans to launch “payment acceptance”.
By providing, for example, payment terminals, payment pages, direct debit solutions, check acceptance, etc. Another service that Swan could quickly deploy: short-term credit. “An electronic money institution can completely request a license extension in order to offer credit of less than a year.”

__

(Featured image by Ibrahim Boran via Unsplash)

DISCLAIMER: This article was written by a third party contributor and does not reflect the opinion of Born2Invest, its management, staff or its associates. Please review our disclaimer for more information.

This article may include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words “believe,” “project,” “estimate,” “become,” “plan,” “will,” and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks as well as uncertainties, including those discussed in the following cautionary statements and elsewhere in this article and on this site. Although the Company may believe that its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, the actual results that the Company may achieve may differ materially from any forward-looking statements, which reflect the opinions of the management of the Company only as of the date hereof. Additionally, please make sure to read these important disclosures.

First published in Finyear. A third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

Although we made reasonable efforts to provide accurate translations, some parts may be incorrect. Born2Invest assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions or ambiguities in the translations provided on this website. Any person or entity relying on translated content does so at their own risk. Born2Invest is not responsible for losses caused by such reliance on the accuracy or reliability of translated information. If you wish to report an error or inaccuracy in the translation, we encourage you to contact us.