Emerging Europe’s start-up scene is thriving: new money and new ideas are coming onto the market all the time. To keep you up to date with the latest investments, innovations, movers and shakers, each Monday Emerging Europe brings you a round-up of the region’s start-ups which recently closed financing rounds, sealed partnerships, or dropped new innovations.
Montonio: Estonian payment and financing platform raises 11 million euros
Montonio, an all-in-one platform for online merchants to accept payments, offer financing and handle the entire post-checkout experience from shipping to returns and refunds, has raised 11 million euros in a Series A funding round led by Index Ventures.
The Tallinn-based company has also announced the launch of its offering in Poland, adding to its existing presence in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, with plans to add further markets this year. To support this growth, Montonio aims to expand its team across Europe.
The company’s previous investors Tera Ventures, ffVC and Superangel participated in the round. Montonio has also been backed by senior Wise, Pipedrive and Bolt executives, including Bolt’s CEO Markus Villig, CPO Jevgeni Kabanov, and Adyen’s former managing director Myles Dawson who is joining the board.
Montonio’s end-to-end platform enables merchants to seamlessly accept bank payments, and handle a range of ecommerce services, from financing to deliveries and refund management – all of this through a single, self-serve API integration. Without Montonio, sellers are routinely overcharged and forced to deal with a fragmented patchwork of multiple systems, or to rely on solutions which aren’t tailored to their specific market.
Markus Lember, CEO and co-founder of Montonio says: “Small to midsize merchants get a raw deal from traditional payments and logistics providers. Often they’re unable to accept local payment methods, are charged a premium for lower volumes, and must piece together many different solutions. This means they face higher costs, and can’t deliver top-quality customer service. We have decided to change that.”
Montonio removes the need for additional layers of providers and fees to accept direct debits, Buy Now Pay Later and other forms of payments, in part due to the introduction of open banking standards. It’s highly sensitive to local needs, offering a breadth and depth of post-checkout services for sellers – from shipping to returns and refunds – that the firm says are unmatched by other providers.
Humans.ai: Romanian start-up expands in Asia with new listing on top tier crypto exchange Liquid
Humans.ai, the Romanian deep-tech startup introducing the first framework for ethical AI with blockchain technology, has announced a new listing for its $HEART token on top tier Asian crypto exchange Liquid. The listing on the number one crypto exchange in Japan is the next step towards Humans.ai’s continued growth in the East Asian market
“We’re excited to announce that our native token $HEART is now listed on Liquid, the number one crypto exchange in Japan and one of the top platforms in the world, serving millions of customers around the globe,” says Sabin Dima, co-founder and CEO of Humans.ai.
“The listing is the next step towards Humans.ai’s continued growth in East Asia, an important market for Humans.ai and for our project’s business development, following the company’s partnerships regionally and strategic investors,” adds Dima.
Ranked one of the most trusted exchanges with top grade AA by CryptoCompare, Liquid is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency-fiat exchange platforms. Supporting fiat in six major currencies, this listing will see a higher adoption of the $HEART token by the East Asian crypto investors.
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