Life.SREDA launches $100 mln second fund

Moscow-based venture firm Life.SREDA is raising $100 million for its second fund. Its focus will be on mostly U.S. and European financial tech startups. The average investment is expected to be between $5 and $10 million.

PRESS RELEASE

Moscow, 14 October 2014. Venture capital firm Life.SREDA, which focuses on investments in the mobile and online fintech space, today announced the launch of their second round of funding – Life.SREDA II. The $100М fund will be aimed at foreign mature startups in the financial technology space, with a particular focus on the American market. Current Life.SREDA stakeholders have already provided $20m for the new fund. Life.SREDA investments have included the Anthemis Group (holding company for fintech companies such as Betterment and Etoro) and Simple, which was acquired for $117m in February 2014 by the BBVA Group.

Based on Life.SREDA’s research, the volume of investments into the financial tech industry has been doubling annually – in 2012 it rose to $1B, in 2013 to $2.2B and by Q1 2014 it had already reached $2.6Bn. The figures are confirmed by the Accenture report “The Rise of Fintech”. Based on CrunchBase research, fintech startups had the biggest increase in funding activity from venture companies than other category in August 2014.

The second fund’s investments will be focused on U.S and European fintech projects, while approximately 10% of the funding will be allocated to Russian projects. The average check for each investment is expected to be in the range of $5-10M. Currently Life.SREDA is in fundraising talks with several large banks and telecom operators, with an increasing interest in Chinese, Hong Kong and Singapore bank investments. It is assumed that the new investors involved in Life.SREDA II will not only provide funding but will also become partners in launching European, U.S. and Asian fintech startups abroad.
Life.SREDA was launched on September 24th, 2012. Within the 2 years of its work it has invested over $40М into fintech startups. In the summer 2014 the firm closed three deals at once – it invested $1.5M into the Ukrainian startup Settle, jointly with BBVA Ventures and Groupon took part in a new round of SumUp worth €10M and invested into the cloud scoring service Scorista. The firm’s portfolio includes a leader of Russian mPOS market LifePay, U.S mobile bank Moven, British fintech firm Anthemis Group, a joint venture with a German online bank Fidor bank. A year and a half ago Life.SREDA also invested in U.S mobile bank Simple, which was acquired for $117m by the BBVA Group and became its first “exit history”.

Once a year Life.SREDA releases an expert fintech study – «Money of the future» – presented in February each year in London at the Finovate. The latest study has been downloaded over 10 000 times in the U.S and U.K. Life.SREDA also is a sponsor of the fintech conference Finovate (London, New York and San Jose) and Money2020 (Las Vegas).

“By launching Life.SREDA II, we are aiming at large banks that want to transform themselves to keep up with the increasingly innovative technological marketplace. It is more profitable for them to acquire a fully baked fintech startup rather than create innovations on their own. We’re seeing a truly global opportunity in Fintech, starting in the USA – as Simple proved – and then spreading throughout the world.” – said Vladislav Solodkiy, Managing Partner Life.SREDA venture firm. “As far as Asia is concerned, the level of retail bank services and their innovation in China, Singapore and Honk Kong can be compared with Russia, the banks require further technological and service development. By investing in Life.SREDA, an Asian partner will benefit from a synergic effect of both a good investment and new services for their market. On the other hand, we are interested in telecom operators: they possess large databases of active smartphone and tablet users. Development of mobile financial services is one of the most evident solutions for them to increase revenue based on the existing user database”.

About Life.SREDA
Life.SREDA is an international venture capital firm focusing on investments in FinTech mobile and Internet projects.
Life.SREDA’s strategy is determined by the deep understanding of the rapidly growing FinTech 2.0 industry and the narrow investment focus. Company believes that “The Next Big Thing” is the combination of the past decade’s global trends, such us the Social & Mobile with the innovative and bright FinTech ideas. Life.SREDA currently operates in the U.S., Western and Eastern European Markets, providing mostly seed and early stage venture funding. Life.SREDA has strategic partnerships with Anthemis Group and Finovate.
Life.SREDA’s portfolio: http://lifesreda.com/portfolio/