Swedish fintech startup closes €3 million to drive EU expansion
Stockholm-based open banking platform Open Payments has raised €3 million in a growth round led by Industrifonden, Sweden’s venture capital fund with participation from Sony Financial Ventures -Global Brain’s venture capital fund- together with its existing investors. The startup provides the market infrastructure required for successful open banking. The funds will be allocated to strengthen the business, promote product development and facilitate expansion.
Open Payments is one of the leading Open Banking platforms in the Nordics with a focus on business-to-business (b2b) transactions. The company’s platform makes it possible to move online banking functionality from the online bank to the customers’ business systems and interfaces, so that the end user can, for example, approve and make secure, direct payments without having to log in to their online bank. The Open Payments platform connects to commercial banks (via API technology) to enable services such as payments, account reconciliation and cash management to be embedded directly into client applications such as ERP systems, payment providers and fintechs.
“We see a growing demand from leading accounting and ERP systems and other financial systems that want to use Open Banking in their products in a secure and reliable way,” says Louise Brandt, CEO and founder of Open Payments. “Above all, they want to be able to provide various payments for their business customers, such as supplier payments and salary payments. Open Payments has specialist expertise in this area and there are great business opportunities for both us and our customers. We see that b2b payments are part of the Open Banking area, where we have a first-mover advantage and can take the lead internationally.”
Industrifondet was the main investor in Open Payment’s last round in 2020, and welcomes Sony Financial Ventures and Global Brain as co-investors.
– There are great opportunities with Open Banking since companies do not need to be banks to offer secure banking functionality within their own systems, says Anna Ljungdahl, Senior Investment Director at Industrifondet. “However, what they need is a player like Open Payments whose technology lowers the entry barriers to these opportunities. We are pleased to continue to support the team and also welcome global investors to Open Payments’ ownership list.”
The Open Payments platform has been developed based on the European directive PSD2. This regulation forces the banks to make account information and payment initiation services available to third parties, with the aim of opening up the market to players other than the banks to bring about new and innovative solutions for financial services.
“Open Banking for the b2b market has been neglected and the digitization that has taken place has instead been aimed at consumers,” says Naoki Kamimaeda, partner at Global Brain. “We are impressed with how far Open Payments has come in building and establishing the infrastructure required to make Open Banking a reality for businesses.”
Open Payments’ customer base consists of accounting and ERP system providers and technology companies, which have integrated Open Payments’ platform to be able to offer their own Open Banking solutions. What the customers have in common is that they have high demands on stability, security and reliability for the millions of business-critical transactions that are processed. The company’s platform has been extremely well received so far, with several new collaborations underway and Open Payments looking to expand into new countries with both existing and new customers. To continue to be at the forefront of the Open Banking movement, Open Payments will continue to scale the product and develop the platform further during this year.
“In Japan, Open Banking is in its early stages, and we are inspired by how far Open Banking has come in Europe and the Nordics,” says Junji Nakamura, director of Sony Financial Ventures. “We are impressed by Open Payment’s technology and how the company has enabled Open Banking for businesses. We made a strategic decision to invest in Open Payments to allow more markets to embrace the benefits of Open Banking faster.”
Open Payments CEO and founder Louise Brandt has a background in Swedish fintech Zettle by Paypal (formerly iZettle), where she held several leading positions. Together with a team with a background from Swedish fintech unicorns such as Zettle by Paypal, Klarna and Trustly, Open Payments has a unique and comprehensive expertise in payment flows and financial services. Open Payments is licensed as a payment institution – payment service company by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority.
