Internet group Tencent has co-led a €104m ($115m) series C round for France-based business banking platform Qonto with investment firm DST Global, TechCrunch reported today.
Venture capital fund Valar Ventures, VC firm Alven and private investors Taavet Hinrikus and Ingo Uytdehaage also participated in the round, which increased the company’s overall funding to approximately $150m.
Founded in 2016, Qonto has built a platform that enables small and medium-sized businesses and freelancers to maintain an online account and manage their finances in a more streamlined fashion.
Some 65,000 businesses use the service, which allows them to secure specialised credit cards and integrate the account with their existing finance and bookkeeping tools.
The company expanded into Germany, Italy and Spain in 2019 and aims to secure the regulatory approval necessary to become a fully-licensed European bank this year. It also intends to increase headcount from 200 to 300.
Alven led a $1.7m seed round for Qonto in 2017 that included Valar Ventures and various angel investors, before joining Valar in an $11.4m series A later the same year.
The company subsequently added $23.2m from Alven, Valar and the multilateral European Investment Bank in September 2018. It claims the series C round is the largest ever raised by a French fintech company.
