Swan secures $40M with Lakestar as lead investor

Embedded finance, the process of effortlessly incorporating financial services into everyday products, has been making waves in the fintech landscape. A French startup named Swan is making significant strides in this area, recently raising $40M (€37M) in a Series B funding round.

• Selling Point: Swan aims to differentiate itself in the market by focusing on a few key principles: Developing native features for a superior user experience, offering a complete API along with a ready-made banking interface, and localizing the product for each European market.

• Features: Swan's payment accounts feature individual IBANs, supporting pay-ins, pay-outs, and SEPA direct debits. The company recently rolled out direct debits and card payments and has plans to delve into lending capabilities. Swan's platform facilitates the creation of both virtual and physical cards compatible with Apple Pay and Google Pay. These cards are customizable in terms of maximum amounts, currencies, and authorized merchants.

• Philosophy: Swan operates with a simple but potent philosophy - any company can introduce payment accounts and incorporate financial services using their platform. By collaborating with SaaS companies, marketplaces, and other fintech startups, Swan permits them to offer white-labeled banking features. Renowned brands like Carrefour, Pennylane, Alma, Agicap, Factorial, and Expensya are among their clientele.

• Investors: Swan's latest funding round was led by Lakestar, with participation from its existing investors. Accel was the primary investor during Swan's Series A round in 2021, with Creandum and Bpifrance contributing at the seed stage.

With over €7B worth of transactions processed for its 100 customers, Swan plans to leverage the funding to reinforce its core strengths and expand further in the European market. The startup is poised to introduce local IBANs for the Netherlands and Italy and aims to attract new customers in these regions.