Lunar Way, the Denmark-based banking app, has received €26 million in a new funding round led by SEED Capital, and has obtained a European banking license in the process. The fintech startup plans to use the fresh capital to accelerate the development of their new Nordic bank and its growth in the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian markets.
Established by an entrepreneur Ken Villum Klausen in Denmark in 2015, Lunar Way launched in Sweden in 2018 and in Norway at the beginning of 2019. In 2018 the startup received the two PSD2-licenses and in 2019 a European banking license from the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA).
"The funding and banking license is the preliminary culmination of years of hard work and dedication from the entire Lunar Way team. We have grown from a small startup to a fintech with close to 100 employees from Denmark, Sweden and Norway with users in all of Scandinavia - a market notoriously hard to penetrate. All the while challenging the status quo of banking in the Nordics and meeting the regulatory demands of becoming a bank. We're the very first of our kind in the Nordics to get a banking license. We've done all this in four years. That in itself is an accomplishment. But our journey is only just starting now," said Klausen, founder and CEO of Lunar Way.
Known for being hard to crack for new banking entrants due to the Nordic clearing systems, and high demands for safety and payment infrastructures that vary greatly from country to country, the Nordic market of 27 million people is rarely a go-to choice for challenger banks and fintech players. But it’s also home to some of the most stable economies and populations where 90 percent is digitally native and already has a mobile banking solution. An interesting case and a challenge Lunar Way found worth taking.
"Unlike other fintechs that have chosen to expand vertically, Lunar Way's approach is to go deep in the Nordics, building not just a supplement for users to have when travelling or as an add-on to their other banking solutions, but as a 100% digital, innovative and true alternative to traditional banks. We mean it when we say that the goal is to change the status quo of banking and to be the #1 banking app of the Nordics," elaborated Klausen.
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