4 years after buying Shine, a French fintech startup that gives financial institution accounts to freelancers and really small firms, Société Générale has introduced plans to promote Shine to Ageras.
In 2020, TechCrunch reported that Société Générale spent round €100 million to amass Shine. It wasn’t an enormous acquisition nevertheless it attracted fairly a little bit of protection on the time because it was greater than only a technological or expertise deal. Société Générale isn’t a reputation that comes up very incessantly in tech startup acquisition information.
In brief, the monetary establishment wished to duplicate BoursoBank’s success in on-line banking — however this time with freelancer and enterprise banking. With at the moment’s information, the French banking big admits that it by no means actually discovered what to do with Shine.
As for Ageras, you may not be accustomed to the corporate nevertheless it has been a consolidator within the fintech and accounting area for the previous few years. The Danish firm was based in 2012 as a web-based market that matches small companies with accountants and bookkeepers.
Extra not too long ago, the startup repositioned its providing. It now desires to supply an all-in-one fintech platform for small companies that covers banking, accounting, tax submitting, and many others.
The corporate additionally raised $73 million in 2021 and one other $88 million in April 2024 (€82 million), that means that it has a ton of money for acquisitions. Ageras acquired Billy and Wage in Denmark, Tellow within the Netherlands, Zervant, a pan-European invoicing product and Kontist, a German challenger financial institution for freelancers. It has additionally developed Meneto, an accounting product for freelancers that jogs my memory of Indy in France.
As you possibly can see, Ageras is constructing a portfolio of firms that supply adjoining merchandise. In some methods, Kontist, Tellow and now Shine roughly provide the identical product. Whenever you create an account, you get an IBAN and a card. You may create invoices, obtain cash out of your shoppers, get reminders when it’s time to pay your taxes and generate accounting exports.
This M&A method is a solution to diversify the corporate’s footprint in Europe as fintech nonetheless stays a fragmented market — there are some outliers that handle to efficiently entice prospects in a number of nations however these are exceptions.
Shine at the moment has greater than 100,000 prospects whereas Ageras serves 300,000 prospects in Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands. In 2023, Ageras reported €31.7 million in income ($34 million at at the moment’s change fee).
Ageras and Société Générale have signed an unique acquisition settlement. Whereas phrases of the deal stay undisclosed, Ageras says that it expects to shut the transaction sooner or later in the course of the first semester of 2025. Ageras plans to maintain all of Shine’s staff and actions.
