France-based finance management app developer Lydia secured over $100m in a financing round co-led by internet and gaming group Tencent yesterday, capping off a fervent 2021 for French technology funding.
Venture capital firm Accel and venture studio Founders Future co-led the round with Tencent, participating alongside investment group Dragoneer and alternative asset manager Echo Street Capital Management at a valuation exceeding $1bn.
Lydia is the operator of a diversified financial services app with more than 5.5 million users – 2 million in its home country alone – who can open current and joint accounts on the platform and access credit, savings and investment tools.
The capital is set to fund an ambitious growth drive intended to include the expansion of the company’s credit and investment products and the recruitment of 800 new staff members by the end of 2024 as it aims to establish itself as a ‘key player’ in a minimum of three markets within the European Union.
Cyril Chiche, Lydia’s co-founder and chief executive, said: “These new resources will enable us to go further and faster in our mission to change the way banking is done, by making all financial services simpler, more accessible and also more instantaneous.
“The success of Lydia year after year and its adoption by more than a third of all French people aged between 18 and 35 confirms the alignment of our vision with current expectations in terms of banking services.
“This mega fundraising is also a new symbol of the remarkable dynamism of the French tech ecosystem and a strong sign of its capacity to create a significant number of international champions in the years to come.”
The round is indeed merely the latest in a long line of large deals for French venture-backed companies in 2021. There have been 24 rounds sized at $100m or over, according to Pitchbook data, and seven of the 10 largest were in the e-commerce and wider financial technology space.
Sorare, the operator of an online trading platform for non-fungible tokens, remains the recipient of the largest round, a $680m series B in September valuing it at $4.3bn. Cryptocurrency wallet provider Ledger had secured $380m three months earlier at a valuation topping $1.5bn.
Telecommunications and internet group SoftBank led both rounds, as well as $200m rounds for corporate education provider 360Learning and employee benefits platform developer Swile, in addition to backing a nine-figure round for e-commerce marketplace Vestiaire Collective.
Tencent, which joined Accel, insurer CNP Assurances’ Open CNF unit, Xange and New Alpha Asset Management in Lydia’s $131m series B round a year ago, had invested in mobile game developer Voodoo at a $1.4bn valuation in August 2020, a valuation increased to $2bn a year later with funding from investment holding company Groupe Bruxelles Lambert.
