Home Credit Venture Capital (“HCVC”), the venture investment arm of Home Credit Group N.V., led the EUR6m funding round for Barion Payment Zrt. (“Barion”), a Hungarian online and mobile payment startup.
Barion’s Smart Gateway payment platform enables merchants to accept payments in e-commerce, m-commerce, brick and mortar shops, or virtually any device for a very low fee. The company has created a comprehensive consumer database from this transaction data which it utilises to generate targeted advertising revenue. The company currently has 6,000 corporate customers and 2,600 webstore partners and plans to expand into the Czech, German, Austrian, Slovak, and Slovenian markets.
Zelig Associates acted as financial advisor to Barion on the transaction.
Home Credit Group’s investment in Barion confirms our shared vision of financial services’ future. Overall, the company impressed us with the traction in its home market, experienced founding team and an internationally applicable, innovative business model.
With Barion as the second investment under the HCVC umbrella, we are staking our claim to a leadership position in innovative integrated financing solutions and opening up new possibilities for synergies with our own lending business. The benefit is mutual – Barion will gain access to Home Credit Group’s global scale and expertise.
Miroslav Boublik
Group Head of Special Projects at Home Credit
Barion’s Sandor Kiss (Co-founder and CEO) and Tamas Biro (Co-founder and Marketing Director)
It was our strategic goal to find a foreign venture capital investor who believes in our growth-oriented model, to fund our international expansion. With this investment, we receive ‘smart money’, so we will able to attain a partnership where, besides the capital injection, we can use Home Credit Group’s extensive international network, and their expertise and experience in the financial sector.
Tamas Biro
Co-founder and Marketing Director at Barion
About HCVC
Established in 2016, HCVC operates as a corporate venture capital fund and typically participates in A and B investment rounds. It seeks to build up a portfolio of investments in start-ups which can provide strategic synergies with Home Credit Group’s businesses. HCVC offers its portfolio companies an unparalleled opportunity to rapidly scale their innovations across Home Credit Group’s 11 diverse markets, from the USA, through Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia, to India, China, and South-East Asia.
About Zelig Associates
Zelig Associates is a global FinTech investment banking boutique based in Europe and North America. We provide independent strategic and financial advice to entrepreneurs, private equity firms and venture-funded companies as well as international corporations. Our firm combines entrepreneurial spirit and transaction excellence with a passion for the FinTech sector.