PARIS: A look at some of Europe’s FinTech hubs

Continuing our tour around Europe looking at exciting FinTech hotspots, we’ve stopped off in Paris to see what’s happening there and which of the French capital’s FinTech companies are winning attention.

It’d be fair to say that the Paris FinTech sector took a little longer to take off than in other major European cities, but the startups have made up for any lost time and are attracting vast swathes of investor funds right across the most romantic of cities.

We’ve been catching up with friend of LendInvest, Liam Boogar, founder of the Paris tech sector’s leading media business, Rude Baguette – who has this to say on the sector’s prospects:

“2015 was a great year for France to show that it can hold its own when it comes to entrepreneurship in the financial services industry. Between Slimpay’s €15M Series A & Leetchi/MangoPay’s investment from Credit Mutuel ARKEA, the appetite for innovation in this space suggest that France will be a market to watch in 2016!”

Rude Baguette will host a new FinTech conference, SPEND, on 28 April 2016 at the Forum des Images, bang in the heart of the city.

So which FinTech companies are making waves in Paris? Let’s take a further look…

Some exciting Parisian FinTech companies

Anaxago

Anaxago is an equity crowdfunding platform that matches innovative SMEs with investors who invest their experience and expertise as well as finance. The company has a real estate arm which caught our eye – Anaxego Immobilier – opening up French property as a new asset class for equity investors. www.linkedin.com/company/anaxago

MangoPay / Leetchi

MangoPay is a Paris-built payment solution tool that’s dedicated to online marketplaces. Calling itself a ‘creation of necessity’ it was founded by parent company Leetchi, an e-money issuer that needed a payment processing service that complied with relevant EU regulations. The company became one of Paris FinTech sector’s biggest success stories last year after Crédit Mutuel Arkea took a majority stake in the business worth an estimated 50 million euros @mangopay

SlimPay

SlimPay has developed a payment processing solution that makes setting up and maintaining recurring payments from a customer’s debit account seamless and simple. The company works with huge businesses like EDF and SFR and collected a 15 million euro investment round from Prime Ventures last year @SlimPay

Finexkap 

Finexkap is an online marketplace that provides short-term working capital funding to France’s SMEs. It’s said that working capital problems cause a quarter of French corporate bankruptcies, so there’s a good market to tap into. @Finexkap

France FinTech

Not technically a startup, but well worth a mention, France FinTech is “l’union des plus belles fintech francaises” – a group of FinTech businesses that tackles issues impacting the growth and potential of FinTech startups and will host their first #FinTechRevolution in May… good luck! @FranceFinTech