$8.5m funding for fintech startup bringing "global mindset" to Europe

A London fintech startup has announced that it has raised $8.5m of funding as it gears up to launch.

Lightyear, which aims to remove the need for conversions in international investments, raised the funding through a round led by Mosaic Ventures alongside existing investors Taavet+Sten and Metaplanet.

New angel investors coming in this time include early Monzo backer Eileen Burbidge, Harsh Sinha, the CTO at Wise and Taavi Tamkivi, the CEO at Salv.

The aim of the startup is to bring a “global mindset” into the European investment space, with the new funding coming on top of a $1.5m pre-seed round earlier this summer.

Martin Sokk, co-founder and CEO at Lightyear, said: “10 months ago Lightyear was just an idea, so we’re really excited to have raised a total of $10m, hired a world-class team and to be launching the first iteration of our app.

“There are more people in Europe investing now than ever before, but there’s still a very long way to go. Our goal is to give all of Europe access to the world’s markets without hidden fees and to make investing cognitively easy.

“We’re excited to have such a strong group of investors that share this vision with us.”

Simon Levene, Mosaic co-founder and partner, commented: “Compared to mature markets such as the US, retail investment across Europe is still at the beginning of its growth journey.

“The customer experience hasn’t really been cracked, and the majority of current offerings serve just their local country.

“Lightyear’s mission is to offer access to global markets for pan-European investors, providing all the necessary data and education they need – with a simple, transparent business model that removes all the hidden and confusing fee structures.

“We’re delighted to support co-founders Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, two veteran execs from TransferWise, at the start of their journey to empower retail investors - experienced and new alike - across the continent.”

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