In 2022, fintech was the second most funded industry in CEE, and fintech startups attracted close to 20% of the total regional funding. In October 2022, the total value of CEE fintech startups came to €30B, and predictions outline that the growth of fintech startups will continue with the same speed in 2023.
Depending on their business models, sub-verticals, and target customers, some fintech startups will find themselves in a better position than others. I crawled through some of the latest fintech reports and expert interviews, read a couple of industry prediction analyses, and asked ChatGPT to help me to compile the hottest global fintech verticals for 2023.
If you are wondering which CEE fintech startups would benefit from the rising market trends, keep reading.
Fintech Startups offering alternative lending and financing
Name: Booste
Country: Poland
Founders: Michael Kacprzak and Aleksandra Wodzisławska
Solution: A revenue-based financing platform that provides e-commerce firms with funding to finance growth through digital ads on Facebook and Google, marketing campaigns, and inventory spending. Founded in 2020, the startup has so far raised a total of €14.6M in funding.
Tag: Pioneer
Name: Kredium
Country: Serbia
Founders: Miša Lazović
Solution: Kredium is a fintech marketplace that enables cross-border property buying through digital residential or commercial mortgages. In essence, the company acts as a stop-shop for cross-border and overseas mortgages.
Tag: Emerging Star
Fintech startups offering banking digitalization
Name: FLOWX.AI
Country: Romania
Founders: Ioan Iacob (CEO), Serban Chiricescu (CTO)
Solution: An enterprise platform helping banks and other financial institutions transform customer and employee experiences into omnichannel digital apps faster, easier, more affordable, and, most importantly, with smooth integration of existing legacy systems. The startup has raised a total of $8.5M.
Tag: Pioneer
Name: Fizen
Country: Poland
Founders: Maciej Krasowski, Joanna Mamczur, Tomasz Cichowicz
Solution: The startup is a one-stop-shop financial integrator that develops open banking technology for retailers, companies, and corporate accounts. Fizen connects bank APIs and external service providers.
Tag: Emerging Star
Fintech startups offering biometric authentication
Name: TypingDNA
Country: Romania
Founders: Raul Popa
Solution: The startup uses typing biometrics technology to recognize people based on their typing patterns. The technology is used for various use cases such as CEA (Continuous Endpoint Authentication), 2FA/MFA, SCA, risk-based authentication, fraud detection, and identity verification.
Tag: Pioneer
Name: Blinking
Country: Serbia
Founders: Miroslav Minović and Miloš Milovanović
Solution: A software development company with a focus and expertise in building and developing digital identity, identity verification, and user data protection. The startup aims to develop a trustworthy and practical software solution for digital identity management and protecting personal user data.
Tag: Emerging Star
Fintech startups in blockchain, crypto, and web3
Name: MultiversX (former Elrond)
Country: Romania
Founders: Beniamin Mincu, Lucian Mincu, and Lucian Todea
Solution: MultiversX is a highly scalable, secure and decentralized blockchain network created to enable radically new applications, for users, businesses, and society.
Tag: Pioneer
Name: Ronin
Country: Romania
Founders: Bogdan Almas, Ovidiu Ghiman, Felix Crisan
Solution: Blockchain crowdfunding platform that opens access to startup investments for everyone.
Tag: Emerging Star
Fintech startups in CFO Tech
Name: PlanDelta
Country: Bulgaria
Founders: Martin Milanov and Milen Manev
Solution: An agile financial planning platform that aims to bridge the gap between strategic planning and flexible financial budgeting. The startup develops the first financial planning and analysis (FP&A) platform, decreasing the time to value.
Tag: Pioneer
Name: Salarium
Country: Romania
Founders: Alina Stefan
Solution: Fintech platform for salary-on-demand that enables employees to use their salaries whenever they need them most.
Tag: Emerging Star
Fintech startups in digital payments and money transfers
Name: Phos
Country: Bulgaria
Founders: Ivo Gueorguiev, Antonina Martinova, and Valeri Valtchev
Solution: A point-of-sale software that does not require any additional software for payment transactions and accepts card payments directly on an NFC-enabled phone or another Android device. Buyers just have to use their card or phone at the back of the merchant’s device and then enter their PIN or choose to pay with Google or Apple Pay.
Tag: Pioneer
Name: Enbank
Country: Bulgaria
Founders: Nick Gospodinov and Aleksandar Bonin
Solution: Enbank allows users to skip the card networks and pay directly with their personal bank of choice. Payments arrive straight to their bank accounts and they can access funds immediately.
Tag: Emerging Star
Fintech startups in digital wealth management
Name: Plum
Country: Greece
Founders: Victor Trokoudes
Solution: A smart application that helps its users manage money with the help of artificial intelligence. Plum’s application analyses the users’ bank transactions and then tells them how much they can save or invest each month.
Tag: Pioneer
Name: Patron
Country: Czech Republic
Founders: Lukáš Vršecký
Solution: An app based on artificial intelligence and machine learning that is able to detect the unnecessarily high costs of a client’s bank account and offers him the best solution.
Tag: Emerging Star
Fintech startups in InsurTech
Name: Boleron
Country: Bulgaria
Founders: Alexander Tsvetkov
Solution: A digital insurance broker that has managed to develop a broad portfolio of digital insurance products beginning with mountain insurance and travel insurance and moving on to all kinds of insurances. Having tailored its offering for B2C clients, the startup is now upgrading its business model and developing a B2B offering for banks and telecoms.
Tag: Pioneer
Name: Minte.ai
Country: Poland
Founders: Stan Borkowski
Solution: An automation software designed to automate the personal claim settlement process.
Tag: Emerging Star
Fintech startups offering RegTech
Name: Silent Eight
Country: Poland
Founders: Martin Markiewicz
Solution: The company uses AI to create compliance platforms for the world’s leading financial institutions. The mission of the startup is to help eliminate financial crime. The explainable AI technology enables clients to solve more screening alerts in less time and with greater accuracy.
Tag: Pioneer
Name: Smart Fintech
Country: Romania
Founders: Ana Maria Georgescu, Mihaela Georgescu, Alexandru Cociu and Andrei Dumitru
Solution: Smart Fintech acts as an intermediary between the bank and its customers and ensures compliance with the regulations.
Tag: Emerging Star
Future considerations
One fintech vertical which is yet untapped in our region is blockchain for banking. As the overall trust in unregulated cryptocurrency platforms decreases, banks are starting to grasp on the opportunity to integrate blockchain technology into their operations.
A couple of international banks such as J.P. Morgan, Swedish Central Bank, and HSBC are already pioneering collaborations with eternal blockchain for banking technology providers to bring their transaction lifecycles onto the ledger, reduce costs, and improve security.
