- Lithuanian fintech Kevin has raised $10 million in a seed round led by OTB Ventures and Speedinvest.
- The startup wants to remove the reliance on bank cards and instead use account details for payments.
- Get an exclusive look at the pitch deck it used to convince investors to back the startup.
A fintech that aims to cut out bank cards as the middlemen of payments has raised $10 million in a seed round backed by a former MasterCard president.
Lithuanian startup Kevin allows customers to make payments directly from their bank accounts by linking them to a merchant’s account. The company, which was founded in 2018, claims its technology will speed up the pace of transactions and also cut out the fees levied by card issuers like Visa and MasterCard.
The payment infrastructure startup relies on bank account information instead of card details. Much of this is due to not relying on a physical card, which could be lost or stolen, and Kevin also claims payments land in accounts in hours instead of days and that it has lower fees.
The Lithuanian fintech will use the fresh cash to launch a point-of-sale system, which will allow consumers to use Kevin for in-person transactions on existing card machines via NFC. This will work just like Google Pay, but the payment comes directly from an account instead of via a bank card.
The round was co-led by OTB Ventures and Speedinvest, which both invest in early-stage European technology companies. Former MasterCard president Javier Perez’s Global PayTech Ventures also backed the startup alongside B2B software investor Open Ocean, and Henry McGovern, the founder of European coffee shop chain AmRest.
While Europe’s wealth of
fintech startups
lured a record $28.4 billion in venture capital funding in 2021, the bubble may soon burst, according to Finch Capital. The Dutch venture firm cites the talent war, rising interest rates, fewer companies going public, and increased regulatory scrutiny as hindrances, Insider previously reported.
But Adam Niewinski, cofounder and partner at OTB Ventures argued Europe’s open banking directive PSD2 was poised to kick start the financial sector’s next wave of digital transformation.
“I think fintech will definitely continue to grow and expand in Europe in the years to come, and there is a lot more to be done,” Niewinski said, adding that incumbents must be collaborative to remain competitive. “The vast majority of fintechs we see today are business-facing, which makes them banks’ friends — not enemies.”
Kevin’s biggest customer is UniPark, the largest parking operator in the Baltics, which uses it for in-app payments. Sokolovas said the company is currently in talks with supermarket chains, which are its target customers.
It is active in 15 markets, including Sweden, Finland, Norway, Poland, Netherlands and Portugal, with boots on the ground in most. This will scale to 28 by the end of 2022, including the UK, Spain and France.
Kevin is also ramping up its headcount. Currently a team of around 150, Sokolovas hopes to expand to over 350 in 2022. Available roles span departments, including sales, business development and engineering.
Check out the pitch deck the fintech used to raise its seed round.
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