HitFox Group launches FinLeap, the first independent FinTechCompany Builder
FinLeap will launch 4 to 6 FinTech companies per year with substantial seed funding of 0,5-5MEuro per company. FinLeap is lead by successful serial-entrepreneurs and HitFox Group founders, Jan Beckers and Hanno Fichtner, PayPal Europe’s former Strategy Director, Jochen Siegert, and more entrepreneurs, finance and technology experts such as Nasir Zubairi, who was elected Top40 FinTech leader by Wall Street Journal and Financial News.
Berlin/San Francisco, 01. Dezember 2014 – Today, international company builder HitFox Group announces the start of the world’s first independent international FinTech company builder, FinLeap, with offices in Berlin and San Francisco. Together, successful entrepreneurs, finance and technology experts use new technologies and scalable business models to provide cheaper, simpler and more transparent digital services to businesses and consumers alike.
“The financial market is both enormous and extremely slow to change from within. There are many opportunities to improve existing products and services and offer entirely new ones. It was a very logical step for us to apply our model to this market next.„ Jan Beckers, Co-Founder and Partner at FinLeap, renowned Entrepreneur of the Year Award by Ernst & Young for building the HitFox Group
FinLeap will start 4-6 autonomous companies per year and provide a comprehensive set of resources that empowers the founders to focus on and create superior products and execute at speed on a global scale. The resulting company cluster is highly synergetic and allows FinLeap to impact the financial sector directly and from multiple angles simultaneously – a model with which HitFox Group was very successful since its foundation in 2011. The group developed from a single startup to a multi-national company builder with numerous ventures in the fields of AdTech and BigData and more than 300 employees on three continents.
FinLeap is lead by HitFox Founders Jan Beckers, Dr. Hanno Fichtner and FinTech veteran Jochen Siegert, who helped to build payment giant PayPal in Europe as Strategy Director EMEA. At launch, 30 serial entrepreneurs and financial services experts, technologists, product managers and graduates from companies such as HitFox Group, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, DKB and Fab.com are working on FinLeap’s first companies. Within the next 12 months FinLeap expects to hire more than 150 professionals for the company builder and its subsidiaries.
“Being successful in FinTech for us primarily means being a lot closer to the customer. New technologies allow us to move much closer to the customer and erase information imbalances, while also decreasing current transaction costs to a minimum with automated processes. In this pursuit, we are developing new solutions entirely in-house or partnering with banks and financial service providers„ Jochen Siegert, partner of FinLeap
Given the rising penetration of new technologies in all major industries and the growth of global private wealth, the FinTech market is certainly one of the most promising entrepreneurial opportunities. According to Allianz Global Wealth Report, worldwide private wealth amounted to a record 118,3 trillion Euro in 2013, 10% more than a year before. In 2012 online and mobile contacts already accounted for 54% of customer interactions compared to just 6% in 2004. Digital channels have significantly increased interaction points between customers and service providers and both decision making and service interactions are expected to become more and more digital as shown by a study of BCG.
About HitFox Group
The HitFox Group is a rapidly growing company builder with 300 employees across ten companies in Berlin, San Francisco and Seoul. The company was founded in 2011 by serial entrepreneurs Jan Beckers, Dr. Hanno Fichtner and Tim Koschella. HitFox Group chooses promising growth markets and launches several new companies within the markets. Right now, HitFox is growing companies in the fields of AdTech, Big Data and FinTech. All subsidiaries benefit from close relationships, shared knowledge and the experience from seasoned serial entrepreneurs and market experts . More information at www.hitfoxgroup.com