France-based robo-investor developer Yomoni has raised €5m ($5.4m) from mutual credit association Crédit Mutuel Arkéa and Iéna Venture, the investment unit of asset management company La Financière de l’Echiquier, according to Journal du Net.
Yomoni’s management team also participated in the round in order to maintain their stake and remain involved in decisions about the startup’s future. The round follows €3.5m of financing from Crédit Mutuel Arkéa and Iéna Venture in 2015.
Yomoni operates an investment platform that relies on robo-advisors to automatically manage a portfolio of stocks, bonds and other assets based on the customer’s choice of risk.
The company offers a range of financial products specific to French laws – assurance-vie, a popular type of life policy that relies on investments and can serve as a pension fund; compte-titres, savings accounts that use stocks; and plan d’épargne en actions, a kind of compte-titre that offers low taxes on returns.
Yomoni is set to launch an assurance-vie specifically aimed at children this month, enabling parents to open a long-term savings account in their child’s name. It will also use the money to hire two additional financial consultants in order to offer extended support hours.
Other forthcoming products include a mobile app and a feature that will help users move money from their current accounts to savings products more easily. Additional capital will support continued research and development.
The company aims to grow to 10,000 clients by 2018 and manage €1bn by 2020, up from €12m at the end of 2016. It is also targeting an expansion across Europe, beginning with Belgium, Switzerland and Italy, but stated this would require another funding round and partnerships.