Yapily raises $13 million
Open banking fintech startup Yapily has raised $13m in a Series A round led by Lakestar, with participation from existing investors HV Holtzbrinck Ventures and LocalGlobe, as well as angel investors Taavet Hinrikus, TransferWise chairman and cofounder, Ott Kaukver, Twilio’s CTO, Roberto Nicastro, UniCredit’s former deputy CEO, and Frank Strauss, former CEO of Deutsche Postbank.
Founded in 2017, the London-based startup enabling companies to access users’ financial data is in the space of Plaid Technologies , Tink , and TrueLayer . In the last six months, Yapily’s monthly recurring revenue has grown by over 500%, it quadrupled its headcount in London to 45, and expanded into Italy, Ireland and France.
“We believe open banking is a force for good. Using our API and infrastructure, we’re not only providing our partners with strong and powerful connectivity to boost their user experiences. But we’re also giving their customers, whether they be consumers or businesses, greater control of their finances, through the creation of products and services which can fuel greater financial management and accessibility. Something that’s more essential than ever during this period of uncertainty. The UK is at the epicenter of the world’s open finance movement, with the industry setting the rules as the world begins to embrace their own open banking positions. We’re pleased to be at the centre of this growth – we’re backed by experienced investors, and we’re the only technical provider trusted and chosen by regulators and technical committees. With this funding we intend to drive open banking adoption and its benefits, ensuring benefits are far reaching within the likes of payments, accounting, lending and beyond.” – Stefano Vaccino, Founder and CEO of Yapily.
“With pressure placed on the world’s economy due to the Covid-19 outbreak, we believe investors have an important role to play in continuing to support innovation to fuel business growth. Now has never been a more important time to drive financial wellbeing and goodwill, and Yapily’s infrastructure is best placed to enable and encourage this across the financial ecosystem. With Yapily, we’re investing in market leading technology that is ahead of the competition, both in terms of seamlessness to the end user, and in security and control. Their “Open API first” approach, with no screen scraping or reverse engineering of functionality, ensures all parties are getting the performance, scale, and security expected of such a critical piece of API infrastructure. Stefano and his growing team have deep technical and regulatory expertise, they’re very ambitious, and we look forward to accelerating Yapily’s business growth.” – Stephen Nundy, Partner at Lakestar.
“By plugging Yapily’s API directly into our platform, we’re able to offer our SME customers a smooth and simple way to access their financial information, unlocking real-time insights into their cashflow. We look forward to working with Yapily as the company continues to thrive.” – Ola Malomo, Head of Bank Partnerships at Intuit QuickBooks.
