French mobile payment company Lydia has completed a fundraising operation that exceeded $100 million (about 89 million euros), bringing its value to more than $1 billion. This brings the company to unicorn status, as it revealed on Wednesday, December 8th. Historic partners Tencent, Accel and Future Founders were the main contributors, but they were joined by US investment funds Dragoneer and Echo Street.
The company with 5.5 million users, launched in 2013, aims to become by 2025 the main account of 10 million Europeans. “To do this, Lydia intends to employ approximately 800 people over the next three years (including 160 in 2022), expand its credit and investment offerings and deploy significant resources to be a record player in at least three major EU countries.”, outlines the press release.
Currently mainly located in France, the mobile payment specialist has started exporting to Portugal and is due to open an office in Madrid in a few weeks. Germany and Italy are the next targets. In 2020, the company has already raised 112 million euros in two phases.
