Float raises €4.5M Series A to build AI-native financial platform for European tech founders #

Stockholm-based Float has raised €4.5 million in a Series A round led by Hamburg holding company CHAPTERS Group AG. The revenue-based financing platform serves European technology SMEs and says it plans to expand into a full-stack financial platform for the startup market.

CHAPTERS CEO Jan-Hendrik Mohr will join Float’s board as part of the deal. CHAPTERS, whose shareholders include Spotify founder Daniel Ek’s family office and Danaher co-founder Mitch Rales, holds stakes in more than 60 vertical software companies across Europe, including German fintechs Fintiba and Expatrio and Swiss wealth management software provider Finfox.

Cedric Notz founded Float in 2022 with the goal of giving European tech companies access to non-dilutive growth capital, including revenue-based financing, credit lines, and working capital facilities, without requiring founders to surrender equity or seek funding outside Europe. The company says it has deployed more than €100 million across over 130 European tech businesses, with clients including hotel revenue management firm RoomPriceGenie and marketing optimisation platform RedTrack.

Float plans to use the new capital to double its headcount, deepen its presence in the United Kingdom, currently its largest single market, and pursue acquisitions through its relationship with CHAPTERS.

The company also says it intends to develop what it calls an AI-native financial platform, integrating capital, banking services, and real-time financial data in one product. The platform would connect directly with clients’ bank accounts and accounting systems to handle payments, expense management, and reporting.

Notz framed the raise around a structural gap for European founders, describing a funding environment that he says still forces the continent’s high-performing tech companies to choose between giving up equity and relocating to the United States. “For too long the continent’s best founders have faced one brutal choice,” he said, according to EU-Startups. Mohr described Float as a potential “driver of a much larger” consolidation story as the company moves into M&A alongside CHAPTERS.

Source: EU-Startups