Kevin. will use the funds as it looks to enhance its account-to-account offering at the expense of card use.
Image source: Pavel Sokolovas (left) and Tadas Tamošiūnas (right)/kevin.
A Lithuanian fintech that uses open banking to facilitate account-to-account payments, eradicating the need for card payments, has raised $65m in a funding round.
Kevin. was founded in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius in 2018 and its mission, it says, is to remove “unnecessary intermediaries in the payment process”.
It now has more than 170 employees running across 30 countries and is working with 6,000 merchants in 12 markets in Europe.
The Series A funding round was led by Accel, with participation from Eurazeo and all existing investors, including OTB Ventures, Speedinvest, OpenOcean, and Global Paytech Ventures.
Additional investors in the round include Harry Stebbings, founder of 20VC, Ilkka Paananen, CEO and co-founder of Supercell, Amitabh Jhawar, ex-CEO of Venmo, and other angels.
The latest funding round comes just six months after Kevin. bagged $10m in a seed round, bringing its total investment to $77m to date.
Kevin. claims to have the broadest PSD2 bank API coverage across the European Union.
Using its API, merchants can accept payments directly from bank accounts, instead of using cards, which Kevin. points out are costly for merchants in card fees.
It began using its open banking technology first with electronic point of sale and then with physical POS terminals.
It says a key benefit to merchants is that payments can be made through existing POS terminal infrastructure in-store and NFC technology.
Tadas Tamosiunas, Kevin.’s co-founder and CEO, explained how the funds will be used.
He said: “With this investment, we’ll continue expanding our international team of experts and developing products that are transforming the payment industry.
“We have big plans for the future and I’m confident that our full suite of next-generation infrastructure for web, mobile and in-store payments will help businesses gain a competitive edge.
“Given the fact that the implementation of the A2A in-store payments solution is quick and cost-effective, we forecast rapid rollout and scale.”
Chloé Giard, Eurazeo investment director, said: “We have been following all the innovations in the account-to-account payment market for a while, and we have been truly impressed by kevin.’s uniqueness and global ambition.
“Since 2018, they have laid the technological foundation for a European-wide payment infrastructure scheme, changing the game in terms of speed, transparency, and fees. Over the past few months, kevin.’s commercial hypergrowth has proved the strength of its value proposition.”
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