5 Lithuania-based fintech companies to watch in 2019
During TNW conference in Amsterdam, we showcased 5 Lithuanian startups that are worth following, no matter who you are: investor, corporate innovation or media. Looks like they are going to be the next big thing.
Apart from exceptional founders, amazing products, and solid technology, there is something else that adds up to their success — these companies are based in Lithuania. So why the Lithuanian fintech is booming?
Firstly, in 2017, the Bank of Lithuania introduced fintech licenses for startups and fintech companies. In less than 3 years resulted in over 170 fintech companies that were licensed and partially based in Lithuania (like Revolut, Google, Harbortouch, Revel, Instarem, and others), and the market is only growing.
Secondly, Lithuania is a great environment to launch a startup, being a part of the EU and well connected to all the major financial centers, it still offers startups pretty low costs for running their startups. Also, it has a blooming and dynamic fintech ecosystem, where you can find customers, partners, etc, and offers quick access to 512M EU market.
And, finally, the tech talent pool in Lithuania is amazing. Apart from the local tech talents, there are a lot of developers and engineers relocating to Lithuania from the neighboring countries.
So check out these companies and follow them in social networks:
Evarvest (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin)
Can you imagine relocating from Australia to Lithuania to launch an app that unites the world’s stock exchanges, making it simple to invest in the brands you know, love and trust, commission free? Stephanie Brennan lived in Australia, the UK and now Lithuania and noticed that the finance industry can’t keep up with the next generation of investors the way that tech companies like Facebook, Uber and Spotify can. That’s how Evarvest’s stock trading app was born. Check out Stephanie’s interview at Techcrunch and join their crowdfunding campaign at Seedrs until it’s too late.
NeoFinance (Facebook, Linkedin)
NEO Finance is a fintech startup, which manages and administers the leading P2P (peer-to-peer) lending and investing platforms in Lithuania that offers international investors average returns of 12% from license peer to peer lending platform. NEO Finance holds an Electronic money institution (EMI) license which allows operations in the entire European Union. Despite the fact that NEO Finance is still a very young company, some impressive achievements has been already made: 7000 active investors, 58,000 registered borrowers, over 32,000,000 EUR loans issued, and over 2,000,000 PIS transactions achieved. By the way, NeoFinance is the first Lithuanian fintech startup to launch an IPO and there is still an opportunity to become a part of it.
ViaCorex (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin)
If you ever worked for a company which is bigger than 500 employees, you totally understand that the corporate purchases and especially the procurement process is a huge mess. ViaCorex is core exchange platform — eProcurement and B2B eCommerce, that solves this problem. Moreover, the startup totally understands the B2B eCommerce companies needs, including the importance of the regular cash flow and is planning to launch the additional service on top of the existing solution — instant factoring through the integration with different factoring companies. Meet ViaCorex founders at DigitalK and Login pitching sessions this year.
ORCAx (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin)
The difference between fintech and funtech is almost none if you are ORCAx. Realizing, that to keep track on the finances, savings, and financial products is pretty boring for the youngsters and millennials, Orca decided to offer the new way to interact with money, to manage your financial data, and to set saving and other squad goals. For partners and B2B customers, Orca a marketplace of anonymized user data that can be used for extremely targeted advertising.
Have you ever decided not to make a purchase on the website because you don’t trust the seller and left the website right before the checkout? MPT Pay founders did, and that’s how they came to the idea to launch a digital payment platform with immediate escrow services for e-commerce. Having banking, corporate, and entrepreneurship experience, the team build a Their next big plans are to become a digital bank and to issue the payment cards for e-commerce. You can meet the founders at Login pitching event in Lithuania on June 7th, 2019 to learn more about their product.
