$160 million for smartphone bank N26

PayPal foun­der Peter Thiel ’s venture capi­tal fund Valar Ventures (Valar) has inves­ted in smart­phone bank N26 for the second time. The finan­cing invol­ves an amount in the double-digit milli­ons. Valar was again advi­sed by the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Taylor Wessing. The first invest­ment took place when N26 was laun­ched in 2015. The current tran­sac­tion, tota­ling 160 million euros, is the largest equity injec­tion a local fintech has recei­ved to date.

With the funds gained, the mobile bank plans to conquer the U.S. and U.K. markets this year and further deve­lop exis­ting products. In addi­tion to Valar, the insu­rance group Alli­anz and the Chinese Inter­net company Tencent, among others, have parti­ci­pa­ted in the mega-investment.

Valar Ventures is a US-based venture capi­tal firm whose foun­ders include Peter Thiel. For the current invest­ment in N26, Valar was compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed by Fran­k­­furt-based Taylor Wessing part­ner Volker Baas, speci­fi­cally in the area of compli­ance with the German Banking Act Compli­ance as well as other regu­la­tory issues. Baas specia­li­zes in banking, banking regu­la­tory and invest­ment law and has many years of expe­ri­ence in advi­sing dome­stic and foreign clients in the German legal environment.

N26 is one of the few German fintechs that has a banking license and can ther­e­fore fully compete with tradi­tio­nal credit insti­tu­ti­ons. N26’s custo­mer base has grown to 850,000 since its foun­ding in 2015. This is expec­ted to grow to five million users by the end of 2020.

Legal advi­sors Valar Ventures: Taylor Wessing
Lead Part­ner Dr. Volker Baas (Part­ner, Banking & Finance, Frank­furt); Till Chris­to­pher Otto (Profes­sio­nal Support Lawyer, Banking & Finance, Frankfurt)