KKR : Record-breaking fundraising of €486 million for Qonto, to further accelerate European growth and become the finance solution for 1 million SMEs and freelancers by 2025read more

Paris, January 11 2022 - Qonto, the leading European business finance solution, announced today it has raised €486 million in Series D funding, bringing Qonto's valuation to €4.4 billion. With this fundraising - one of the largest ever in French history - Qonto sets a new record valuation for a French scale-up. This latest round is jointly led by new investors Tiger Global and TCV, in addition to eight other new contributors: Alkeon, Eurazeo, KKR, Insight Partners, Exor Seeds, Guillaume Pousaz, Gaingels and Ashley Flucas. They will join current investors Valar, Alven, DST Global and Tencent who are all renewing their support by participating in this new funding round.

Since its launch in France in 2017, Qonto has been committed to building the first all-in-one finance solution for SMEs and freelancers. Qonto simplifies everything from everyday banking and financing to bookkeeping and spend management, allowing its customers to focus on what truly matters. The company currently has more than 220,000 clients across four markets (France, Germany, Italy, and Spain). With this new funding round, Qonto's ambition is to become the finance solution of choice for 1 million European SMEs and freelancers by 2025.

To support its high-level goals, Qonto will:

● Continue expanding its product offer through in-house development, new strategic partnerships and potential acquisitions to ensure it offers its clients the best product available on the market;

● Further grow its market penetration across Germany, Italy and Spain and new markets. In 2021, the company opened local offices in Barcelona, Berlin and Milan to fully tailor its offer to each market and lay down roots in those local ecosystems to foster closer partnership. Qonto is expanding particularly rapidly across these markets: the company has quadrupled its revenue over the past two years. Qonto will further accelerate its strong momentum across Europe by investing over €100 million in each market (Germany, Italy and Spain) over the next two years. Qonto also plans to reinforce its European leadership by launching in new markets by 2023. In 2025, it is expected that 75% of new clients will come from outside France.

● Recruit new talent and quadruple its team to more than 2,000 by 2025, 50% of new hires to be based outside of France. In part, this will be achieved thanks to the creation of a new Customer Support Operations Hub, to be based in Barcelona and designed to maintain its outstanding customer support while further scaling. To reinforce its international recruitment strategy and meet the expectations of an increasingly agile and mobile talent pool, the company will also launch a European "Qonto Campus" program to enable international mobility between the local offices.

Alexandre Prot, co-founder and CEO of Qonto: "Since our launch in 2017, we've constantly strived to create the finance solution that energizes SMEs and freelancers, empowering them to achieve more. This new Series D funding round is an amazing opportunity for us to accelerate our hyper-growth trajectory by investing in our product, our customer service and our power to attract new talents. This funding round reveals the incredible dynamism of the French and European Tech ecosystem. We count on policymakers

to continue their efforts to ensure entrepreneurship can succeed, leading to European and global champions that deliver innovation. This is only the beginning of our journey to best serve SMEs and freelancers and we couldn't be more excited about what the future holds for us and our ambitions. The Qonto team is honored to welcome the most prestigious international investors to support our mission to become the leading business finance solution."

John Curtius, Partner at Tiger Global:"Qonto has revolutionized business finance for SMEs and freelancers by marrying simplicity with a unique all-in-one service. The company has seen a significant increase in clients across its European markets during the coronavirus pandemic. This also shows that customers' needs are evolving during these unprecedented times. We have tracked Qonto's incredible growth for some time and are delighted to partner with the entire Qonto team and support their mission to serve a rapidly growing European market."

"We at TCV love to back visionary founders and could not be more excited to partner with Alexander, Steve and the rest of the Qonto team, said John Doran, General Partner at TCV. "We look forward to supporting them as they continue to bring best-in-class banking and finance solutions to millions of SMEs and freelancers across Europe."

Steve Anavi, Co-Founder and President and Alexandre Prot, Co-Founder and CEO of Qonto

About Qonto

Qonto is the leading European business finance solution. It simplifies everything from everyday banking and financing to bookkeeping and spend management. With its fast and innovative product, highly responsive customer service and transparent prices, Qonto energizes SMEs and freelancers so that they can achieve more.Founded in 2017 by Steve Anavi and Alexandre Prot, Qonto serves more than 220,000 clients in 4 countries (France, Germany, Italy and Spain) and employs more than 500 talents in Paris, Berlin, Milan and Barcelona. Since its creation, Qonto has raised a total of€622 million from Valar, Alven, the European Investment Bank, Tencent, DST Global, Tiger Global, TCV, Alkeon, Eurazeo, KKR, Insight Partners, Exor Seeds and Gaingels to support its global growth ambitions.Qonto has been listed by the French government in the Next40 index, which brings together the 40 most promising scale-ups in France with the potential to become a global leader.

Press Contacts Qonto

Nadini Camaret - +33 (0)6.21.58.73.87 [e-mail]

Pauline Heinrich - +33 (0)6.95.59.94.18 - [e-mail]

Investos

About Valar

Valar invests in high-margin, fast-growing technology companies that are pursuing huge market opportunities. Based in New York City, Valar was founded by James Fitzgerald, Andrew McCormack and Peter Thiel (who also created PayPal), with a focus on the increasing number of transformative technology companies that are being started outside of Silicon Valley. More information:Valar.com

About Alven

Paris-based Alven is an early-stage venture capital firm with over $500 million under management. Alven backs primarily ambitious European entrepreneurs in the digital technology space. Alven's sectors of interest notably include AI, data-driven platforms, Saas, security solutions, as well as disruptive consumer models with a particular focus on marketplaces and web brands. Past or current investments include Algolia, Dataiku, Drivy, Happn, Wit.ai (Facebook), Captain Train (Trainline/KKR), Bime Analytics (Zendesk), Frichti, Tinyclues, iAdvize, Peopledoc Wynd, Sqreen, Meero, Sezane, Qonto and OpenClassrooms. More information: Alven.co

About DST Global

DST Global is one of the leading Internet investment firms globally. Its investments include some of the world's fastest-growing and most valuable companies. DST Global's founder is Yuri Milner and its co-founders are Tom Stafford, Saurabh Gupta, John Lindfors and Rahul Mehta. DST Global has offices in Silicon Valley, New York, London, Beijing and Hong Kong.

About Tiger Global

Tiger Global is an investment firm focused on public and private companies in the global Internet, software, consumer, and financial technology industries. Tiger Global's mission is to generate world-class investment returns over the long term. Tiger Global aspires to do so in a way that makes its partners and portfolio companies proud, as the company builds a unique, global investment platform.

About TCV

Founded in 1995, TCV was established with a clear vision: to capture opportunities in the technology market through a specialized and consistent focus on investing in high-growth companies. Since inception, the firm has built a track record of successfully backing public and private businesses that have developed into dominant industry players across internet, software, FinTech, and enterprise IT. TCV has invested over $16 billion to date and has helped guide CEOs through more than 145 IPOs and strategic acquisitions. TCV has invested in cutting edge technology companies including Airbnb, Believe, Brex, Dream Sports, FarEye, Mollie, Nubank, Razorpay, RELEX Solutions, Revolut, RMS, Sportradar, Spotify, Trade Republic, The Pracuj Group, and Zepz. TCV has successfully executed over 350 investments of varying structures, including mid-stage, late stage and public company investments, and has offices in Menlo Park, New York, and London. For more information about TCV, including a complete list of TCV investments, visit https://www.tcv.com/.

About Alkeon Capital

Alkeon Capital is a global investment firm that invests in private and public growth and technology companies and category definers. With more than two decades of experience focusing on People and Innovation, Alkeon works closely with disruptive private companies to help them expand their addressable market, scale efficiently, and seamlessly crossover to the public markets. Alkeon's goal is to be a long-term and accretive partner to all its portfolio companies along their private and public journey.

About Eurazeo

Eurazeo is a leading global investment company, with a diversified portfolio of €27 billion in assets under management, including nearly €19.2 billion from third parties, invested in 450 companies. With its considerable private equity, venture capital, private debt as well as real estate and infrastructure asset expertise, Eurazeo accompanies companies of all sizes, supporting their development through the commitment of its nearly 300 professionals and by offering deep sector expertise, a gateway to global markets, and a responsible and stable foothold for transformational growth. Its solid institutional and family shareholder base, robust financial structure free of structural debt, and flexible investment horizon enable Eurazeo to support its companies over the long term.

About KKR

KKR is a leading global investment firm that offers alternative asset management and capital markets and insurance solutions. KKR aims to generate attractive investment returns by following a patient and disciplined investment approach, employing world-class people, and supporting growth in its portfolio companies and communities. KKR sponsors investment funds that invest in private equity, credit and real assets and has strategic partners that manage hedge funds. KKR's insurance subsidiaries offer retirement, life and reinsurance products under the management of The Global Atlantic Financial Group. References to KKR's investments may include the activities of its sponsored funds and insurance subsidiaries. For additional information about KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE: KKR), please visit KKR's website at www.kkr.com and on Twitter @KKR_Co.

About Insight Partners

Insight Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software ScaleUp companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Founded in 1995, Insight Partners has invested in more than 400 companies worldwide and has raised through a series of funds more than $30 billion in capital commitments. Insight's mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with practical, hands-on software expertise to foster long-term success. Across its people and its portfolio, Insight encourages a culture around a belief that ScaleUp companies and growth create opportunity for all. For more information on Insight and all its investments, visit insightpartners.com or follow us on Twitter @insightpartners.

About Exor Seeds

Exor Seeds is the venture investment arm of Exor NV, the leading diversified holding company controlled by the Agnelli family. For over a century, Exor has built great companies and made successful global investments with a culture that combines entrepreneurial spirit and financial discipline. With a Net Asset Value of over €30 billion, its portfolio is principally made up of companies in which Exor is the largest shareholder: Ferrari, Stellantis, PartnerRe, CNH Industrial, IVECO, Juventus FC, The Economist, GEDI Gruppo Editoriale and Via Transportation.

The Exor Seeds team invests in early-stage companies, connecting Exor back to its entrepreneurial roots and long history of innovation. The team focuses on backing exceptional founders who have the ambition to build great companies.

About Gaingels

Gaingels is the leading investment syndicate in support of and representing the LGBTQ community and allies in the venture capital space. With over $450,000,000 deployed into a portfolio of over 700 companies since 2018, Gaingels is also the

co-founder of [Mathison.io](http://mathison.io/) and provides an internal at-cost diverse board member/observer recruitment advisory for our portfolio companies. Gaingels invests in companies with LGBT founders and C-suite leaders at all stages of growth, as well as in other high-growth companies resolved on building more inclusive teams. Gaingels is a founding co-signer of the Diversity Term Sheet Rider Initiative to increase access to venture funding events for non-traditional check writers, and regularly co-invests with select VC leads across a variety of sectors, from technology, to B2B, healthcare and consumer, in competitive and over-subscribed rounds from Seed to Growth/pre-IPO. For more information visit [www.gaingels.com](http://www.gaingels.com/).