E-commerce in Europe is expected to grow 30% this year to $465 billion, and that’s giving rise to a new ecosystem of services built to cater to e-commerce merchants. In the latest development, Juni, a neobank that is built specifically for companies selling online, has closed a Series A of $21.5 million, only 12 weeks after officially opening for business. The Series A is being co-led by partners from DST Global and Felix Capital with previous backer Cherry Ventures and other early investors also participating. Gothenburg, Sweden-based Juni had previously raised a seed round fo €2 million ($2.4 million) back in November when it was still only in waiting-list mode.
Neobanks have made significant inroads into the world of finance, providing consumers with a better and more modern user experience, more personalization and often better rates than their larger, incumbent counterparts, and we have seen some major developments on that front: huge valuations, big customer growth, and now, slowly, the first of them going public. For now it is standing out partly because of how quickly it’s getting adopted, and how they have set out to own this space. That will see Juni also moving into a wider range of products to fill out more of the needs of running an e-commerce business, be it more kinds of credit products to keep cash flowing, one reason why storied investors like DST are interested.