Newsletter Q4 2020
Welcome to the second newsletter of Elevator Ventures and a Happy New Year!

We hope that all of you had merry holidays and a great start into the new year, we definitely did :-).

We are happy to announce our investment in Twisto, the leading Central European Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) provider. Twisto has received over €16 million from international investors led by Zip Co and Elevator Ventures.
Check out Crowdfund Insider to learn more about Twisto and the investment!

We launched our first Elevator Ventures blog post about our origin story, investment focus and the team behind. Check it out to gain further insights into how we leverage the power of RBI Group and which countries in Central and Eastern Europe are especially hot for VC investments.

• Agro.Club expands on the successful launch in home market in Russia and brings its online agricultural platform to Canada to make the entire agri industry more efficient.
• Agro.Club is proud to announce their first client to sign on in Canada, Canterra Seeds, which shares the vision of creating a more efficient, inclusive technology solutions for the value chain to better serve the farmers.
• Check out their blogpost or listen in to the first installment of the Agro.Club Conversation on solving the most painful inefficiencies in the agribusiness.

 

• FinCompare immediately reacted to the COVID-19 induced threat of insolvencies for SMEs and introduced the Schnellkredit on their platform to ease SME's access to these funds.
• Handelsblatt featured FinCompare and Barkow Consulting's study on the financing limitations of the Schnellkredit.

• Check out this talk of Peter Bainbridge-Clayton, Co-Founder & CTO of kompany, with CoinGeek's Natalie Mason about why Know-Your-Customer and Know-Your-Business processes fit perfectly on blockchain
• Want to learn more about AMLD6? Then check out this summary of kompany explaining the biggest changes and what you need to know in order to prepare your AML framework.
• kompany has joined forces with TruNarrative to enable swifter anti-money laundering compliance for regulated businesses around the world.

• Pisano welcomes the new co-investor QNBeyond Ventures, who joined the USD 2.5mn funding round to accelerate their expansion in the MENA region.
• Pisano is now a Certified CX partner of Customer Institute!
• Check out Pisano's newly launched Employee Experience Tools: Pisano Pulse, Engagement, etc.

• Tarfin launched their new mobile app which eases the financing for small farmer's agri input purchases.
• Buy Now, Pay at Harvest: European Investment Fund (EIF) shares latest updates on Tarfin.

• French InsurTech +Simple raises €20m, with participation of FGFE, on its way of breaking the digital SME insurance paradigm. For more insights into why FGFE invested into +Simple, check out this blog post by our friends of Speedinvest.

• The Irish Revenue-Based Financing and Marketing Analytics Startup Wayflyer secures €7.8m in Seed funding with participation of FGFE.

• The fastest growing Insurtech company in Europe raised €50m led by EQT Ventures with existing investors Accel, Founders Fund, Speedinvest and FGFE also participating.

• We are happy to announce the first exit of our Fintech Growth Fund Europe. Cegid is acquiring 100% of Koalaboox, the state of art digital invoicing and factoring solutions for SMEs.

2020 has been a difficult year for many companies and the job market overall.  Still, hiring is one of the most crucial parts of growing successful companies. We know our portfolio hired amazing new people to their teams. In 2020, Elevator Ventures portfolio companies created over 50 jobs!

• Interested in fundraising for Fintechs? Then check out this webinar of Beyond Fintech by eleven and Visa with Maximilian Schausberger and our dear colleagues from Metavallon, Augmentum, and Earlybird.
• Elevator Ventures took part in the SME Banking Club Conference 2020. In this talk you can learn more about our view on the latet developments of Fintechs in CEE
• CVC weXelerate Event On December 14, the online event "Corporate Venture Capital - to CVC or not to CVC" took place! Check it out to get exciting insights from international companies from various industries on the topic of CVC.
• We have been part of the rooftop.talk about the chances of the Regulatory Sandbox in Austria. On this panel, opportunities of innovative business models under the supervision of the FMA were discussed. Check out the video here (only in German).

• The open banking (r)evolution in CEE: https://www.trendingtopics.eu/open-banking/
• a16z's take on the future of fintech: New retailer payment methods; Vertical banking; Fintech x government; QR codes’ big moment?
• Check out this take on the ‘Fintechization’ of Everything: The 7 Hottest Fintech Trends in 2021

• RBI and C-Quadrat launched a new €200m Growth Fund for Austrian Medium-Sized Enterprises
• RBI launched it's new RBI API Marketplace
• Relaunch of Raiffeisen Research Platform offering latest economic research on CEE

Technical Sales Manager (Vienna)

 Channel Sales Manager (Vienna)

Data Scientist (Istanbul)

Customer Journey and Segmentation Associate (Istanbul)

Finance Associate (Istanbul)

Here you can see our virtual X-mas party celebrating a successful (though challenging) year 2020!