Post-Takeover, SMB Bank Penta Secures Latest Funding

About two years since launching its small business bank account service, challenger bank Penta announced new funding.

Reports in Bloomberg this week said Germany-based Penta raised nearly $9 million in a funding round led by HV Holtzbrinck Ventures. According to TechCrunch, Finleap and Fabrick also participated in the round. Finleap acquired Penta earlier this year, reports noted.

Penta targets businesses on the smaller end of the SMB spectrum, allowing companies with up to 70 employees sign up for its banking services. Reports said following the investment, Penta aims to on-board about 12,000 new clients onto its services, with a goal of reaching the 20,000 small business customer mark by the end of the year.

Further, Penta is eying the Italian market in its expansion plans, reports said.

“This is our biggest round of financing so far,” the firm’s CEO Marko Wenthin told Bloomberg.

“We believe in consolidation in the German FinTech industry, and we want to play an active role in that,” said Finleap CEO Ramin Niroumand.

As Bloomberg noted, Germany’s financial services industry is in flux, with Deutsche Bank having launched its own digital bank for business customers dubbed Fyrst, similarly targeting small and micro-firms (the service is available for businesses with up to 10 employees, reports said).

Other challenger banks looping to disrupt Germany’s small business banking market include N26 and Kontist.

The new funding for Penta comes just weeks after it announced the appointment of Wenthin as CEO. He comes from Banking-as-a-Service company solarisBank, which he co-founded, and which holds bank accounts for Penta’s small business customers. Reports in June noted Penta first began its search for a new CEO following Finleap’s acquisition, with the company assuring at the time that its former CEO Lav Odorović would remain a Penta shareholder.

“His step back from the operational management team was a decision taken by mutual agreement,” the company’s statement explained. “Lav was the right fit during the building phase of Penta, but by entering a new step of growth, the company faces bigger challenges and needs therefore to position itself differently.”