Danish neobank Lunar raising a €210m Series D round just days after Dutch rival bunq made its first ever rise. Both digital lenders are part of the growing European fintech scene aiming to give traditional banking behemoths a run for their money. Investment company HEARTLAND led the round, with Swedish investment firm Kinnevik and Chinese technology titan Tencent topping up Lunar’s coffers as well. The news follows from Lunar’s acquisition of Swedish consumer lending and peer-to-peer savings platform Lendify in April. The acquisition is the latest in a string of examples of challenger banks buying smaller startups, hinting that the market is quickly consolidating.
UK neobank Revolut presented the challenger bank with ample opportunities to buy startups cheaply as the global health crisis would see those firms struggle to make ends meet. Lunar is part of a wave of new Nordic neobanks that include Icelandic startup indó as well as Swedish challenger banks Northmill and Rocker. The Danish digital defier of traditional banking claims to stand apart from the crowd by being the only cloud-based digital banking platform to have been granted a banking license in the Nordics. These challenger banks are part of a wider European wave of neobanks that plan to purloin customers from on incumbent banks’ who have struggled financially since the 2008 recession.