These new funds will be used for research and development, the launching of new services and the strengthening of iBanFirst’s international presence.

iBanFirst – founded in 2013 by Pierre-Antoine Dusoulier – allows companies to make payments and transfers in foreign currencies through its web platform using real time FX rates. In 2016, iBanFirst had already raised 10 million Euros to support its growth and the launch of new services. iBanFirst has grown significantly as a company since 2016: its staff grew from 16 to 90 people. In January 2018 iBanFirst was the first Fintech to be present on the Isabel platform, which allows the company to offer its clients real-time exchange rates.

In October 2018, Fintech Belgium awarded iBanFirst the ‘Fintech Scale-Up of the Year’ award. In 2017 it received the prize for financial innovation and recently Deloitte added the company to its well-known ‘Technology Fast 50’ of 2018. The Belgian monthly magazine ‘Management Team’ mentioned iBanFirst as one of the 10 Fintech companies to keep an eye on in 2018.

The French venture capitalist Serena, specialised in the information technology (IT) sector, is leading the capital increase. The other new investor is Breega, a European venture capitalist that finances start-ups in the digital economy. The French Angel Investor Xavier Niel has also once again invested in iBanFirst. The 15 million euros will be used for research and development, the launching of new services and the strengthening of iBanFirst’s international presence.

"It is our ambition to continuously expand our platform with new services”

Pierre-Antoine Dusoulier, founder of iBanFirst: "We have an enormous growth potential thanks to this new capital increase, with the favourable conditions due to PSD21, with all of the market depth and due to the cumulated data of 2,500 clients and 20,000 suppliers from across the world. Our ambition is to continuously enrichen our platform with new services. In 2018, we started offering online hedging, where we guarantee an exchange rate, personalised IBANs, aggregation of external accounts, payment tracings with Swift GPI, etc.”

And he continues: "We in fact know no limits when it comes to radically changing the financial universe of enterprises. In the near future we will also offer new currencies, financing of debt claims, short term investments, but also even more elaborate future transactions.”

Jeroen Hoevers, Country Manager Belgium at iBanFirst, adds: "this capital increase will allow us to more quickly expand our activities in Belgium and to offer our future clients state-of-the-art services. In September 2018, iBanFirst opened a new office in Antwerp in order to provide even better services to our clients in Flanders and the Netherlands.”

"Although iBanFirst is still just at the beginning of its development, it already has a lot of value to offer to its clients. We trust this company’s capacity to become a leader in this market because of the transparency of the prices in real-time, ultra-innovative functions in the sector and the impeccable feeling that the customer experiences. The founder and his management team are experts in their field and they have the ambition to become a reference in financial services for enterprises with an international activity,” says Bertrand Diard, Venture Partner with Serena.

Ben Marrel, co-founder of Breega, elaborates: "There are not that many start-ups who can perfectly estimate the potential that will present itself with the altered PSD 2-regulation. Today it is possible to construct an incomparable value-offer beyond the bank infrasctructure, as was previously the case with the telecommunications- and the energy sector. This is exactly what iBanFirst is developing with its metabank vision for international enterprises and this is why we are happy to join this adventure. We are extremely enthusiastic about the goal to construct a European leader together!”