Weavr signals further growth and expansion in Europe with Portugal launch
With summer firmly upon us, Lisbon’s tech scene is beginning to heat up as it welcomes the launch of Plug-and-Play Finance provider, Weavr, to Portugal.
In recent times, Portugal has become a noted hub for start-ups. In fact, the number of start-ups per capita in the country is currently 13% higher than the average in Europe.
Thanks to its skilled, multilingual, and diverse local workforce, Lisbon was recently ranked seventeenth on a list of the Top 100 emerging ecosystems, with the city quickly becoming a hotbed for investors and innovators alike. To this end, the city’s booming tech and fintech scene is currently worth €2.1bn
Now, Weavr will become the latest addition to this thriving hub. The business has already announced the appointment of Lisbon native, Joaquim Marques, to lead local business development, with more technical and development hires expected soon. Making an early impact, Weavr has also signed deals with two Portuguese companies, E-virtual and GrowIN Portugal.
Speaking on the launch, Daniel Greiller, chief commercial officer, said: “The traditional Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) model in Portugal, as across all of Europe, is dauntingly complex and expensive for early-stage businesses looking for options to embed financial services. It’s totally at odds with the country’s agile and innovative start-up community and appetite for growth.
“By offering a ‘plug-and-play’ model of embedded finance we can enable digital businesses in Portugal to look beyond the limitations of traditional BaaS and instead use our ready-made embedded-finance options. It also means that more businesses can unlock growth much more quickly and efficiently without worrying about complex integrations or regulations, navigating compliance or manage data security, as it’s all part of the Weavr service.”
Last year, there were 2,159 start-ups in Portugal, and this growth is set to rocket. With Weavr’s platform, Portuguese start-ups will be able to get to market in just a few weeks, eliminating lengthy delays in setting up and reducing unnecessary costs, which are typically experienced with BaaS and other embedded-finance providers.
Marin Cauvas, principal at Anthemis adds: “Weavr continues to build on its vision to become the mainstream plug and play embedded finance infrastructure partner of any business types. Lisbon is an obvious expansion hub for the company given the growing breadth of its innovation and technology startup tissue.
“Weavr’s solution has the potential to largely benefit the local ecosystem, by impacting how businesses “think” about their tech infrastructure, whether they are launching a new product, aiming to expand internationally or are in need to modernise part of their stack.
With imminent plans to expand into the US and Singapore, Weavr’s sights are set firmly on rapid global expansion, enabling more start-ups to get to market quickly and efficiently offer financial services to their customers.
The official Weavr launch event, entitled “Sky-Rocketing Growth for Digital Start-ups” in partnership with Fintech House, will be held at the Altis Grand Hotel in Lisbon on 23rd June 2022 at 5pm. The event will welcome successful founders, investors, and the media to a panel with experts, including a world-leading venture capital firm Anthemis, in which they will offer strategic advice on building, funding and growing a start-up.
