Scalable Capital
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A new fintech unicorn: Scalable Capital raises $180m from Tencent
Scalable Capital launched five years amid the boom in 'robo advisors' but has pivoted its business significantly in the past year and sailed ahead of the competition in terms of valuations and funding.
Digital wealth manager Scalable Capital has raised a huge series E funding round of $180m (€150m) led by Chinese tech giant Tencent. Existing shareholders also participated in the Series E.
Tencent’s fintech credentials are strong in its native market, it owns Wechat Pay for example, but also has some other notable fintech investments in global companies such as Nubank and N26.
The new cash, a record for funding to a European wealth-focused fintech business, brings the total capital raised by the Anglo-German firm to over $320m (€260m) and has pushed its valuation to $1.4bn.
Scalable, which launched in February 2016, initially offered a direct to consumer business that was shuttered in the UK at the start of this year, as exclusively revealed by AltFi.
It raised money last in July 2020 with a $50m round. A month earlier in June 2020, the company launched a neo-broker.
More than half of its client assets in the broker are invested in over 1,500 Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) available on the platform, the rest is spread across over 4,000 shares and 2,000 funds.
It says it now has a quarter of a million clients and over $5bn (€4bn) of client assets on its platform.
“Tencent complements our existing long-term partners who already represent an international investor base. Our recent funding is a major step forward on our way to becoming the leading retail investment platform in Europe. The strong acceleration of our growth further validates our mission to empower investors”, says Erik Podzuweit, co-CEO and co-founder of Scalable Capital.
“We see huge demand to invest money in the capital markets instead of leaving it in bank accounts. This comes against a backdrop of record-low interest rates, growing inflation and a widening pension gap”, says Florian Prucker, co-CEO and co-founder of Scalable Capital.
“Our clients can access fully managed globally diversified ETF portfolios and – in the same app – self directed trading in shares, ETFs, cryptocurrencies and funds. We also provide a market-leading offering of ETF, stocks and crypto monthly savings plans. We are planning to launch derivatives trading next. We will continue on our mission to make everyone an investor”.
Scalable says it now has over 230 employees and as well as headquarters in Munich and an office in London, Scalable Capital recently opened a location in Berlin to attract more talent, especially in the fields of engineering, client success and marketing.
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