neon is a challenger online bank that offers digital banking and payment functionality to retail customers. The startup has grown to about 130,000 customers. It exceeded its prior-year revenue of CHF 3.5 million by August and expects roughly CHF 6 million in revenue by year-end. After a phase of aggressive customer and revenue growth, neon is using the capital raise to pursue break-even and to continue expanding product functionality. Planned product launches for 2023 include trading in stocks and cryptocurrencies. The company has pursued partnerships (for example with frankly and Swatch, including SwatchPay) to broaden its offerings. neon is a Zurich-based challenger bank. It recently offered tokenized, non-voting participation certificates (Partizipationsscheine) to its customers as part of a crowdinvesting campaign. The offering included a free wallet for investors to hold the tokenized shares and other tokens, with Sygnum Bank acting as the tokenization partner. In early June neon closed a financing with existing investors that made CHF 7 million available for growth and then raised CHF 5 million from the customer crowd campaign. The crowd campaign was oversubscribed and fully subscribed within about an hour of launch; the average investment was CHF 2,913. Neon says the proceeds will support further growth and CEO Jörg Sandrock described the demand as overwhelming. neon is a Swiss app-based challenger bank offering a low-cost, user-friendly mobile current account. One year after go-live it had surpassed 30,000 customers and employs about 20 people. Accounts are opened at Hypothekarbank Lenzburg, providing deposit insurance up to 100,000 CHF per customer, and customers receive a Mastercard with no fees or foreign-exchange markups. neon partners with TransferWise for fast, low-cost international transfers and has integrated mobile payment functionality. The company has also collaborated with Smile (Helvetia’s digital insurer) to launch a mobile bancassurance solution and is pursuing growth in eCommerce and the Romandie with partners like QoQa. Neon provides a smartphone app banking solution with a paperless registration that takes under ten minutes, a bank account without a basic fee, and a free MasterCard. Accounts are hosted at Hypothekarbank Lenzburg. The company highlights speed improvements, faster card bookings, added self-service features and planned support for E-Bills to strengthen its "Swissness." Neon was founded in 2017 and employs about 15 people across Zürich and Munich. The team includes founders and executives with over 60 years of combined banking and digital-business experience. The recent financing is earmarked for further product development and stabilization. neon is a Zurich fintech that offers an app-only banking package without base fees and includes a free Mastercard. The service is provided solely as a mobile account app. The founders appeared on the TV show "Die Höhle der Löwen" and secured investor backing on-air. neon aims to triple its user numbers by year-end and plans to use non-traditional, less "bank-like" channels to reach customers. The startup has entered a partnership with Brack.ch and is in talks to be integrated as a payment option with online merchants. The company says it will use the raised funds for product development and marketing and reached a valuation of CHF10 million about three months after market entry.

Total raised

$22M

Funding rounds

5

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Oct 2022