Float, a Stockholm-based revenue-based financing platform for tech SMEs, today announced a €4.5 million Series A funding round to close the European tech funding gap.
The round was led by Hamburg-based CHAPTERS Group AG, a holding company investing in attractive small and medium-sized enterprises across various industries. Its portfolio includes Swiss wealth management software provider Finfox, German FinTechs Fintiba and Expatrio, and 60 other mission-critical vertical market software businesses across Europe. Its largest shareholders include Daniel Ek’s family office and Danaher founder Mitch Rales. Jan-Hendrik Mohr, CEO of CHAPTERS, will join the Float board
Jan-Hendrik Mohr said, ”Our investment in Float underlines our positive view on the European tech industry. Float’s financing service already gives tech SMEs a reliable means of scaling their business, however, as the company expands their offering and explores competitor acquisitions, they are now a driver of a much larger, shared vision to empower founders across the continent. We look forward to working closely with Cedric and Jannis, supporting Float on its growth journey.”
Founded in 2019 by Swiss entrepreneur Cedric Notz and German entrepreneur Jannis Koehn, Float is an AI-native financial operating platform helping technology SMEs across Europe access growth capital and automate financial operations.
The company states that it combines non-dilutive funding with AI-powered financial management tools to enable founders to scale faster without sacrificing equity or getting slowed down by unnecessary bureaucracy.
Float CEO and co-founder Cedric Notz said, “The current global financial system is fundamentally broken for modern tech companies. While startups operate internationally from day one, banking remains stubbornly localised, bogged down by manual bureaucracy and fragmented tools. As a founder in the tech industry myself, I have experienced the difficulties of securing working capital firsthand. At Float, we address these problems head-on. We revolutionise an opaque process that is riddled with delays, unlocking growth and potential for founders across Europe.”
Float notes that its mission to date has been to provide liquidity to the European tech sector by providing non-dilutive growth capital, credit lines, and revenue-based financing that lets B2B SaaS and subscription businesses fund their growth without relinquishing equity or fundraising outside of Europe.
The startup now plans to evolve from a provider of simple, flexible credit lines to an AI-native financial platform for startups that will enable founders to navigate their finances with greater speed and efficiency. It, however, highlights that lending will remain the core of the business
Once operational, the tool will leverage live access to bank accounts and accounting systems, in turn providing financial analysis and automating financial tasks including payments, expense management, and accounting, Float explained.
“However, our ambition runs far wider than fixing financing, we are building the new backbone for European tech – the capital, banking, and data, all in a single AI-native financial platform built for the 21st century. For too long the continent’s best founders have faced one brutal choice: give away their company, or leave for America. We want founders to succeed here in Europe,” added Notz.
Float plans to deploy this fresh capital to double its team size and expand its presence in the UK, already the company’s largest market. The company also plans to leverage their strategic partnership with CHAPTERS to enter the M&A market.
Operational since 2022, the company reported that it has provided over 130 European tech companies with funding, such as hotel revenue management company RoomPriceGenie and marketing optimisation platform RedTrack, with more than €100 million allocated over the past three years. It has recorded more than 100% year-on-year revenue growth since its founding and has reached profitability on a net income level this year.
