BNP Paribas’ venture arm backs $16.5 million round for startup Token
Opera Tech Ventures, the venture arm of investment banking giant BNP Paribas, has backed a $16.5 million investment round for open banking platform provider Token. Token announced the news Tuesday, saying that existing investors Octopus Ventures and EQT Ventures also participated in the round, among others.
The investment will go toward building its platform TokenOS, which “enables a global ecosystem of banks, their customers and developers to initiate payments and move money and information securely, instantly and frictionlessly worldwide,” according to the announcement.
Token said it recently partnered with Mastercard, and that more than 4,000 banks are connected to its platform, including Tandem Bank, Think Money Group, An Post, Sberbank Croatia and Slovenia, Khaleeji Commercial Bank.
“The open banking wave - driven in Europe by PSD2 [Revised Payment Service Directive] regulation - is a huge opportunity to create new value propositions for consumers, as well as dramatically improve existing ones,” said Alastair Mitchell, partner and investment advisor at EQT Ventures.
Apart from the open banking platform, Token has a stablecoin called Token X, backed 1:1 by fiat currency held in escrow, according to information from its website. “Token X enables instant movement of funds globally at a very low cost.”
Founded in 2015, Token previously raised $18.5 million in Series A in 2017 to expand in Europe.
