Finance Monthly December 2019 Edition

Lunar Way is a Danish digital banking app which operates in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Founded in 2015, the startup received its banking licence this year and has offices in Aarhus, Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm, having raised $53 million so far. Lunar Way provides its users with a basic account, money transfers, bill payment, and budgeting tools. You can also create personalised goals, save money and choose credit lines depending on your needs. German FinTech Penta offers SMEs and startups a digital financial services platform which saves them time and money. Hoping to disrupt business banking in Europe and worldwide, the company connects a number of services and provides a platform for all of its users’ financial needs. Earlier this year, Penta was acquired by finleap and in August 2019, it raised €8 million in an investment round led by HV Holtzbrinck Ventures. London-based startup Trussle is your free online mortgage broker, helping you wherever you are on the ladder. All you need to do is create a Trussle profile which indicates your unique needs and Trussle will go through 12,000 deals to find the right one for you. Set up in 2016, the company is the first online mortgage broker and has raised £19.3 million in the past three years. Since its inception in 2016, TrueLayer has been building universal APIs that allow companies to securely and efficiently access their customers’ bank accounts to share financial data, make payments and validate their identity. London-based and available in the UK, the company will be expanding into the EU soon, aiming to become the leading provider of APIs that will power a new era of financial innovation. In June this year, the startup raised $35 million in funding in a round led by Chinese financial giant Tencent and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek, which will fuel its expansion into Asia. Wagestream is an app which gives your employees the power to stream their earned wages into their accounts whenever they need it. The company has an expanding list of partners – all of which are seeing up to a 40% increase in staff retention, 10% increase in employee productivity and a huge competitive recruitment advantage - as much as a 10x increase in job applicants by offering flexible daily pay to employees. Backed by Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, the London-based FinTech was founded in 2018 and has so far raised an impressive £44.5 million 14 www.finance-monthly.com FRONT COVER FEATURE - 20 FINTECHS TO WATCH IN 2020