Qonto, a neo-bank for business account holders that was established in France in 2017, has expanded its operations into Germany, Italy, and Spain.
Notably, Qonto was the recipient of the first investment by billionaire Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures in France during its Series A funding round conducted in 2017.
The digital-only banking service provider for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), freelance workers, and tech startups provide a wide range of financial services including expense management, company card issuing and cash flow services to around 65,000 business accounts globally.
Last year, Qonto handled transactions worth an estimated €10 billion (appr. $11.1 billion), which is significantly greater than €3.5 billion in transactions managed the previous year.
The service had previously been soft-launched in Germany in 2019 so that customers could test it out and provide feedback about what needs to be improved.
Philipp A. Pohlmann, Qonto country manager for Germany, stated:
“We’ve conducted dozens of interviews with customers to identify the needs of German companies. Some special features, such as the possibility to generate virtual cards that can be used in real time, to upload invoices also from your smartphone and to upgrade to Premium cards with exclusive services are particularly popular.”
Qonto reportedly has more than 180 professionals on its payroll, over half of whom are focused on global product development, as the company aims to further expand its operations to different European markets.
Qonto aims to help business owners save time by providing streamlined account opening and improved day-to-day user experience, unlimited transaction history, easy accounting exports, and easy-to-use expense management tools.
Clients receive real-time notifications when transactions are made and have access to a comprehensive user rights management system. Clients are also able to take advantage of “improved visibility” on cash-flows with the company’s smart dashboards, transactions auto-tagging, and cash-flow monitoring services.