Estonian-founded investment platform Lightyear announced that it has raised a US$25 million Series A equity round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The company’s seed investors, Mosaic Ventures, Taavet+Sten and Metaplanet also took part in the round alongside a number of new and existing angel investors. Virgin Group had also joined in this investment round.

The funds will be used to support the company’s plans to expand across Europe.

The fundraise comes at the same time as Lightyear’s expands into 19 European markets, just nine months after it launched in the UK.

Lightyear will be onboarding customers from these 19 European countries; Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.

Lightyear has also set its sights on non-Euro countries next including places like Sweden, Norway, Romania, Poland and Hungary.

Martin Sokk, Co-founder and CEO at Lightyear said,

“Nine months ago, we launched our app in the UK to initial waitlisters. Fast forward to now, and we’ve secured a European licence that enables us to launch across the continent and raised one of the largest Series A rounds in 2022.

 

We’re so excited to welcome Nicole and Lightspeed, alongside the Virgin Group, onto our strong bench of investors that share this vision with us and have such deep experience in growing successful businesses from the very start of their journey.”

Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group said,

“For too long, financial markets have been overly complex with high barriers to entry and confusing jargon.

 

Martin, Mihkel and the Lightyear team are lifting the lid on the world of investing – making it more transparent whilst empowering people through education – to choose the products which are right for them.”