FINOM acquires Kapaga to drive UK, European expansion

Small business and freelance B2B services platform FINOM has paid an eight-figure sum to acquire UK-based cross-border payments facilitator Kapaga to help expand in the UK and Europe.

The two payment services will be combined and company officials say there's a real commitment across both businesses to provide European SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) with innovative fintech, setting a "new standard" for the industry.

Figures provided by Amsterdam-based FINOM show Europe's SMEs are underserved by B2B financial services. Despite the rise of fintech globally, just 3% of European SMEs in operation have digital platforms for finance management, with most continuing to rely on traditional banks.

Kapaga was set up in 2020 by Katya Dorofejeva, an alumna of financial market analysis and news service Bloomberg, and since then has seen annual revenue soar above the £1 million threshold.

That success is down to the 200 UK SMEs and corporate entities which now use Kapaga's product, a cloud-based architecture that supports business-to-business payments and invoicing in more than 190 countries and several different currencies.

In a press announcement emailed to Tech.eu, FINOM co-founder Kos Stiskin said entrepreneurs and freelancers served as the European economy's backbone, producing an astonishing $8 trillion of value a year. As such, getting B2B payments to run more smoothly and across borders could reduce a massive amount of friction.

Stiskin said innovation European companies were being impeded by "costly" and "time-intensive" bureaucracy, which have made their businesses work less efficiently.

FINOM was founded in 2019 as a "mobile-first" access point for B2B financial services, tailored to the needs of entrepreneurs and freelancers with electronic invoices, cross-border SEPA payments and digital wallets.

It's since expanded across 27 countries employing some 150 full-time staff across France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. FINOM claims its app is also the most downloaded fintech app in France, Germany and Italy.

The acquisition came about following a networking chat at a ski event for connecting startup founders hosted by London VC Target Global, a shared investor across FINOM and Kapaga.

Mike Lobanov, partner at Target Global, said: "It is fantastic to see two of our most promising portfolio companies team up to bring innovative finance solutions to such a huge yet underserved market.

"FINOM and Kapaga have both demonstrated strong growth over the past two years, and I am confident that through their shared vision and understanding of the market, they will create a powerful product that has the potential to disrupt the B2B banking services market.”