Beyond working capital: finmid raises €17m as embedded lending takes on bigger, more complex financing
Summary
-
•
finmid has raised €17m, led by Big Pi Ventures, with Mainset co-investing and Earlybird following on. That brings its total funding to €52m
-
•
The round comes with two of finmid's biggest launches to date: multi-year vehicle financing for fleet operators with Bolt, and Skroutz Funding, where Greece's largest marketplace lends to its merchants from its own capital
-
•
Since launch, finmid has extended more than €4bn in financing offers to businesses across 30 European markets. Around 85% of borrowers come back for more
October 2026: When finmid launched in 2021, the idea was simple: the platforms businesses run on know them better than any bank does. A delivery app sees every order. A payments provider sees every transaction. A marketplace sees every sale, as it happens. So the best place to offer a business financing is inside the platform it already uses.
For most of the last five years, that idea has been put to work on one problem: working capital. Short-term, revenue-based advances that help a restaurant buy stock, a shop cover a slow month, or a merchant open a second location. Platforms such as Wolt, Delivery Hero, myPOS and efood now run financing programmes on finmid's infrastructure, and businesses keep coming back: around 85% of borrowers return for further financing, and financed merchants have grown their revenue on partner platforms by as much as 45%.
Working capital was the proof. This month, finmid announced what comes next.
Three ways embedded lending is growing up
1. Bigger loans, longer terms
Platform lending has mostly meant small, short tickets repaid in weeks or months. The businesses on those platforms often need more than that. A fleet operator on a ride-hailing app doesn't need help with next week's fuel bill. They need cars.
With Bolt Vehicle Solutions, fleet operators on Bolt can explore available vehicles on the platform and are then connected to finmid to review financing options and apply. Repayments are fixed and monthly, and ownership transfers with the final payment, so a recurring cost becomes a long-term asset. It's finmid's first multi-year asset loan, and it shows the same rails can carry far more than a cash advance. (For a deeper look at how this works, read our guide to embedded vehicle financing.)
2. The platform's own capital
Until now, the question for most platforms has been "who can we partner with to lend to our customers?" Skroutz asked a different one: "what if we lend to them ourselves?"
Through Skroutz Funding, Greece's largest online marketplace can lend directly to its around 9,000 merchants, with Skroutz Group providing the capital and finmid handling the underwriting, regulated lending, servicing and refinancing. It's the first finmid partnership in which its credit infrastructure wraps around the platform's own source of capital. The marketplace gets to back its merchants with its own balance sheet, without having to become a bank.
3. New kinds of platforms
Embedded lending started in food delivery and payments, where daily sales data makes underwriting fast. Bolt and Skroutz take it into mobility and e-commerce. Both bring different businesses, different financing needs and different data, and both run on the same single integration.
Alexander Talkanitsa, co-founder, finmid, said:
"Two years ago, embedded lending meant a cash advance for a restaurant. Today the same rails carry a multi-year vehicle loan, a marketplace's own balance sheet, and the potential for more. Every platform with business customers now has a way to become their financing partner without becoming a bank."
Who's backing the next chapter
The €17m round is finmid's first funding announcement since its €23m Series A in April 2024. It was led by Big Pi Ventures, through Big Pi Growth, the first technology growth-equity fund out of Greece and south-east Europe. Mainset joins as a new co-investor, and Earlybird, an investor since the early days, follows on.
The capital will go into expanding finmid's asset-finance products, its multi-source funding infrastructure and its underwriting capabilities, and into further platform categories, including mobility and e-commerce.
Nick Kalliagkopoulos, Partner, Big Pi Ventures, said:
"Embedded lending is now essential infrastructure for marketplaces, and finmid is built to deliver it. Their capital light structure lets them grow quickly, and their licensing and geographic foothold make them a partner marketplaces can plug in once and scale everywhere. Their traction in southeast Europe, a region many overlook despite its size, is proof of how much whitespace is still out there."
Max Schertel, co-founder, finmid, said:
"Small businesses have never lacked ambition – they've lacked a lender who could see them. Platforms, with their live and embedded view of the businesses they power, are uniquely placed to fill that gap, and finmid exists to make it happen. With Bolt we're financing the cars that fleets run on; with Skroutz the marketplace itself is putting its capital behind its merchants. Our job is to make that credit safe, fast and regulated – whoever provides the money and whatever businesses need it for."
What this means if you run a platform
If you've looked at embedded lending before and decided it was only about short-term cash advances, it's worth another look. Three questions are now on the table that weren't a year ago:
-
•
What do your customers need to finance? Not just cash flow, but vehicles, equipment, inventory and other assets that keep their business running
-
•
Whose capital should fund it? Your own balance sheet, your banking partner, or finmid's refinancing partners, all through the same infrastructure
-
•
How much do you want to run yourself? finmid handles underwriting, regulated lending, servicing and compliance across 30 European markets, so you can offer financing without building a lending business
Talk to our team about what embedded lending could look like on your platform.
In the press
The news was covered across Europe, including by Tech.eu, The Paypers, Financial IT, Finanz-Szene and Capital.gr.
