Brite Payments is looking to accelerate the growth of instant payments following a $60 million funding round led by specialist B2B software investor Dawn Capital and joined by Headline and existing investor Incore.
The news will further Brite’s ability to leverage Open Banking to offer businesses instant account-to-account (A2A) payments and payouts.
Lena Hackelöer, Founder & CEO, Brite Payments, said: “We see account-to-account payments gaining momentum across Europe, but merchants are still struggling to realise the full potential for their businesses.
“That’s why we’ve built a complete instant A2A payments and payouts offering that can be plugged into any checkout, while eliminating operational hassles such as settlement accounts, reconciliation or FX. 2022 was our breakthrough year, and with this funding round, we’re ready to accelerate our growth and bring Brite to more markets and checkouts across Europe.”
Following formation in 2019 the firm has become one of Sweden’s fastest-growing fintechs, now available in 25 countries across Europe through connections with 3,800 banks, touching more than 350 million end consumers.
Brite has outlined that it will use the fresh funding to accelerate its geographic expansion, strengthen its presence in existing markets, and invest further in product development.
Josh Bell, General Partner, Dawn Capital, said: “We are on the cusp of open banking 2.0. The prospect of real-time account-to-account payments becoming mainstream across Europe is on the horizon, and Brite stands to be the category leader. We’ve been on the ground in this space from the start, with early investments in Swedish fintech leaders including iZettle and Tink, and we believe Brite is on an equally stellar path.
“Lena is an extremely impressive CEO with first-rate domain knowledge and the all-round skills to build another market-leading global fintech from Europe. Deploying a driven bootstrap approach, Lena and her talented team have built a company with an impressive product and have rapidly reached profitability – a real feat for an early-stage open banking startup. We now can’t wait to help power Brite onto the world stage.”
Jonathan Userovici, General Partner and Fintech Practice Lead, Headline, added on the news: “Companies like Brite are rare. Laser-focused on execution, they have built a great, real fintech product away from the spotlight.
They reached profitability last year by offering a superior merchant and consumer product while quickly growing revenue. Open banking is at an inflection point and the main driver of competition in the financial industry. With Brite, Lena and her team are building the category winner we have been looking for in a space that grows yearly at a double-digit pace.”
