Spain-based Spocat Fintech receives €31M

By 2016, investment in Spanish fintech companies is expected to triple and the number of companies operating in the sector is expected to double. 2015, with 78 companies operating in our country and funding of around €200M, has been the take-off of this sector in Spain, which according to Venture Watch was the protagonist of the 9.6% of operations of the venture capital is in Spain.

However, we are still a long way behind leading countries such as the UK. According to figures from London and Partners, the UK attracted $554 million in fintech investment in the year to September 2015, compared to $487 million for the whole of 2014.

Trends that will shape the sector in 2016

According to Jay Reinemann, Managing Director of BBVA Ventures2015 the discovery of Blockchain by banks has been one of the great financial achievements of 2015. 2016 will be the year of innovation in this sector. Startups worth following include Abra.com, which is creating a low-cost remittance product, Stem, which is trying to solve how royalty payments are made to content owners (artists and musicians, for example). And One Name is developing identity tools to enable services such as password-free logins.

Another trend will be the growth of relationships between players in the sector. fintech and banks. If in 2015 we have already seen that banks have made collaboration agreements with crowdlending platforms, for 2016 it is expected that not only crowdfunding platforms will be the only ones to collaborate with banks, collaboration will take place in the entire financial technology ecosystem - in payments, insurance and wealth management e.t.c.

Latest operations in the sector

A few days ago we learned that Spotcapthe German online credit platform for businesses, based in Spain, closed a €31M round.

The round, which aims to expand the company globally and finance the online business of credit lines for companies in Spain, the Netherlands and Australia, involved private equity fund Finstar Financial Group in addition to the already investing Holtzbrinck Ventures.

This is the third round for the company that was founded in 2014. In the two previous rounds, investors such as Rocket Internet, Access Industries, Holtzbrinck Ventures and Kreos Capital.

Moreover, Peter Thiel, Fintech pioneer, co-founder of Paypal and first external investor in Facebook, has invested in Hamburg-based Deposit Solutions GmbH, the first open architecture platform for retail deposits in Europe. Its investment complements a September growth funding round led by FinLab AG, a leading German fintech investor. In total, €6.5M has been raised in this round.

Challenges Spain, need for regulation in the sector.

One of the challenges identified at the FinTech Unconference 2016, organised by the Web Financial Group (WebFG) is the need for good regulation in our country for this sector, which is why the creation of a single regulatory authority was proposed, necessary to be able to compete with Anglo-Saxon countries that are much more advanced.

Another major challenge discussed was the need for the entire financial sector to be aware of the coming digital and technological impact, which is one of the reasons why the IEB hosted the event as a leader in financial education.

The Fintech Unconference also saw the launch of the Fintech Index25, an index to be developed by Bolsa.com that will be reviewed monthly and will include the most important listed FinTech companies in the world.

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