Ivy closes a seed round of €7 million

Munich-based startup Ivy has secured €7 million in a seed round led by Creandum. Ivy offers a global API for instant bank payments that cuts out middlemen and enables more cost-efficient transactions.

Munich, Germany, - Ivy has secured €7 million in a seed investment round led by Creandum. The startup aims to build a better payments world by eliminating middlemen and enabling more cost-effective payments via instant bank connections.

Traditionally, payment fees have caused businesses to lose profits, due to middlemen in the 21st century payment infrastructure. In particular, credit card networks, payment gateways and digital wallets are involved in a standard online transaction in this regard. Transaction fees in this process are roughly 1-3%. Ivy enables merchants to accept instant bank payments at checkout to cut out these middlemen. In parallel with integration as a payment method at checkout, Ivy has also developed products such as instant payouts, refunds, payment by link, financing controls, and advanced KYC (Know Your Customer) services. The startup serves use cases in various industries such as e-commerce, travel, gaming, and marketplaces. They also work with payment service providers through their API.

In ten years, trillions of dollars will be paid through banks rather than credit cards - a significant shift that Ivy will drive. More than 60 countries around the world are currently rolling out instant bank payments infrastructure.

Ferdinand Dabitz, Co-Founder Ivy

Creandum led the round. Other investors in this round include 10xFounders, Jens Lapinski of Angel Invest, and leading business angels such as Jeppe Rindom (founder/CEO of Pleo), Daniel Krauss, Jochen Engert and André Schwämmlein (founders of FlixBus), Oliver Merkel (founder of Flink), Christian Grobe and Matthias Knecht (founders of Billie), Martin Blessing (former CEO of Commerzbank) and Nico Rosberg (F1 world champion).

Connection via API

Merchants who want to work with Ivy do not have to change their existing payment setup. The "Pay by Bank" option can be added to the checkout directly via the API or as a plugin for all popular store systems such as Shopify, Shopware, Magento or WooCommerce. The payment option is uniquely focused on conversion and end users.

In line with this user focus, businesses can pass on some of the savings to their customers to further motivate them to abandon credit cards and digital wallets. Behind the scenes, Ivy's technology routes between different instant bank connection systems and banking infrastructure providers, always selecting the connection with the highest probability of success. The API is currently available in Europe, the U.S., the Middle East and Africa, and the Southeast Asian region. In total, it connects to over 500 million bank accounts in more than 50 countries.

Ivy's current team is made up of talent from companies such as Klarna, AmazonPay and Worldpay. The company is currently hiring in partnerships, sales and technology.