Lunar Way raises €26M and secures
European banking license
Nordic banking app, Lunar Way, has secured €26M in a new funding round led by Seed Capital in a syndication with Socii Capital and new investors on board, Augustinus, Anders Schrøder, CW Obel and other Business Angels. With the additional funding and a brand new banking license at hand, Lunar Way plans to accelerate the development of their new Nordic bank and the growth of Danish, Swedish and Norwegian markets.
Lunar Way, the Nordic fintech that has made it its mission to challenge the banking industry, is on the move once again. The company is the first fintech company to receive the license, which effectively transforms Lunar Way from fintech to the newest bank of the Nordics.
“The funding and banking license is the preliminary culmination of years of hard work and dedication from the entire Lunar Way team. We have grown from a small startup to a fintech with close to 100 employees from Denmark, Sweden and Norway with users in all of Scandinavia — a market notoriously hard to penetrate. All the while challenging the status quo of banking in the Nordics and meeting the regulatory demands of becoming a bank. We’re the very first of our kind in the Nordics to get a banking license. We’ve done all this in four years. That in itself is an accomplishment. But our journey is only just starting now,” says founder and CEO of Lunar Way, Ken Villum Klausen.
The Nordic market consists of only 27 million people but is the home of the most stable economies in the world with some of the wealthiest and tech-savvy populations on the planet. Even though it’s known for being hard to crack for new banking entrants due to the Nordic clearing systems, and high demands for safety and payment infrastructures that vary greatly from country to country, Lunar Way has chosen to focus its efforts solely on the Nordic markets since day one.
Also read: SEED Capital backs Lunar Way to conquer the Nordics!
“Unlike other fintechs that have chosen to expand vertically, Lunar Way’s approach is to go deep in the Nordics, building not just a supplement for users to have when travelling or as an add-on to their other banking solutions, but as a 100% digital, innovative and true alternative to traditional banks. We mean it when we say that the goal is to change the status quo of banking and to be the #1 banking app of the Nordics,” Ken Villum Klausen explains.
With populations where 90% is digitally native and already has a mobile banking solution, the first challenge of the Nordics is to offer a product that is innovative, easy to manage and compelling. The next challenge is to launch a bank, unlike anything the users know.
“The future belongs to those who offer the best user experience, and it’s our ambition to be the leading financial marketplace in the Nordics. We already offer the users control of their entire personal finances, spending overview, savings, interactive budgets and up to 4% interest. The plan going forward is to collaborate with those who offer the best financial solutions out there and tie the whole thing together in the Lunar Way app. From here the user can access, view and handle all their personal finance needs,” says Ken Villum Klausen and elaborates.
“We’ve already taken the first steps in Denmark and offers insurance, loans, multi-currency cards and so on with several different partners. Soon we’ll provide investments with Saxo Bank. The bank license will help us create similar marketplaces for our Swedish and Norwegian users faster. It will also enable us to build our own financial products.”
Lunar Way is available in Denmark, Sweden and Norway and already has employees from all three countries in the offices in Copenhagen and Aarhus. The first Stockholm office has just opened, and Oslo is next in line. The newly acquired funding of €26 million will facilitate the next step, which is to further anchor Lunar Way locally while cementing its ambitions of becoming the #1 banking app in the Nordics.
‘’Ratings show that the Lunar Way banking app is loved by their audience. And with more than 100.000 customers in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, Lunar Way has clearly demonstrated an unmet need in the banking market. The natural step forward is for Lunar Way to own and control more of the value chain by securing a banking license. This will both increase profitability per customer and allow Lunar Way to offer even better and more unique products to their customers.’’ Says Lars Andersen, General Partner at Seed Capital.
Seed Capital invested in the company for the first time in 2015, and it sure has been an interesting case to follow ever since. It can be easily said that we are very excited about Lunar Way’s future journey in the Nordics!
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