The plan of Lydia is to expand its business beyond France to European countries with this new funding.
A report by TechCrunch has indicated that Lydia has raised $100 million in its latest funding round (Series C), bringing the valuation of the French fintech super-app to over $1 billion.
The round saw the participation of Tencent and Accel, Founders Futures, who are existing investors, plus first-time investors like Dragoneer and Echo Street that all contributed hugely in the round.
Speaking on the round, the co-founder and CEO of Lydia, Cyril Chiche, said that the Series C round was impressive because most of the participants in the round were old and existing investors. “What’s really impressive with this round is that it is primarily financed by existing investors.”
This explained that things are really changing faster and better. Previously, when a funding round focuses majorly on existing investors, it simply means that such companies or entities seeking funding could not attract new investors to trust their business. In that case, the old and existing investors would add more funds. It Is now otherwise, as various VC firms now invest and re-invest in any startup that is doing well in business to increase their investments in such a startup.
Lydia’s inception in 2011 started as a peer-to-peer payment app, enabling users to link their debit card and bank details, which automatically grant users the opportunity to send and receive mobile payments among its users. Surprisingly, it became the leader in its class in France.
Lydia did not stop evolving, as it developed to become a financial super app built with exciting features and financial products. With Lydia, users can have a virtual or physical debit card usable on the Visa network. Additionally, it offers a platform that allows users to easily manage their funds with sub-account they can give to other Lydia users.
The plan of Lydia is to expand its business beyond France to European countries with this funding. Also, it plans to hire not less than 800 individuals in the next few years. Currently, the company boasts of 5.5 million users but hopes to get double the figure from European users by 2025.
As reported by TechCrunch, the co-founder of the Startup, Cyril Chiche, believes that people will change the way they manage their funds in a few years to come, and what the company is doing is simply the reinvention of the banking industry.
Recently, the startup partnered with Bitpanda to help expand its products to crypto and stock trading, offering users the opportunity to diversify their savings into what is trending crypto. This new feature could be a big opportunity for the future of the French startup.
Oluwapelumi is a believer in the transformative power Bitcoin and Blockchain industry holds. He is interested in sharing knowledge and ideas. When he is not writing, he is looking to meet new people and trying out new things.
