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Finmid Raises €17 Million To Expand Embedded Lending Into Vehicle Finance And Marketplace Credit

Berlin-based embedded lending infrastructure company Finmid has raised €17 million in new funding as it broadens its business beyond working capital finance and pushes into vehicle loans and marketplace lending.

The Series A extension lifts the company’s total funding to €52 million and signals a clear strategic shift: from serving as a financing layer for short-term business credit to supporting more complex, longer-duration asset finance products across mobility and e-commerce.

From Working Capital To Larger Business Assets

Finmid enables digital platforms to offer financing to business customers without building their own lending stack. Its infrastructure covers underwriting, regulated lending and servicing, while financing capital can come from the platform itself, a banking partner or finmid’s refinancing partners.

That model has already been deployed across working capital use cases. Now, the company is extending it into categories where the stakes, ticket sizes and underwriting requirements are materially higher.

The latest capital will support expansion of finmid’s asset finance products, multi-source funding infrastructure and underwriting capabilities, with particular focus on mobility and e-commerce.

Bolt And Skroutz Become Strategic Launch Partners

The first new product is Bolt Vehicle Solutions, a financing programme developed with ride-hailing company Bolt to help fleet operators access tailored vehicle finance. The product is designed for operators who need commercial vehicles but often struggle to secure lending suited to intensive business use.

Finmid said traditional lenders can struggle to assess fleet businesses because they lack a full view of commercial performance, while standard manufacturer financing is often not built for high-utilization vehicles. The new offering is intended to close that gap by combining vehicle selection on the platform with a financing application routed through finmid.

The structure is straightforward: operators can browse vehicles available through Bolt, connect with finmid to review financing options and complete an application. The financing includes fixed monthly repayments, and ownership transfers to the operator after the final payment. In effect, a recurring operating expense becomes a path to a long-term business asset.

Finmid’s second new product is Skroutz Funding, created with Greece’s largest online marketplace to provide financing to about 9,000 merchants on the platform. Unlike previous implementations, Skroutz Group itself is supplying the capital, while finmid provides the lending infrastructure, including underwriting, regulated lending, servicing and refinancing.

Finmid described the arrangement as its first partnership in which the platform’s own balance sheet sits at the center of the financing model.

A Bet On Embedded Lending Becoming Infrastructure

For finmid, the expansion reflects a broader view of embedded lending: not as a narrow product category, but as the financial infrastructure behind the digital platforms where businesses already operate.

Alexander Talkanitsa, co-founder of finmid, said the market has evolved rapidly. “Two years ago, embedded lending meant a cash advance for a restaurant,” he said. “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,” Talkanitsa added.

Max Schertel, co-founder of finmid, said platforms are increasingly well positioned to extend credit because they have direct visibility into business activity. “Small businesses have never lacked ambition, they’ve lacked a lender who could see them,” he said. “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,” Schertel added. “Our job is to make that credit safe, fast and regulated, whoever provides the money and whatever businesses need it for.”

Investor Confidence In A Capital-Light Model

The round was led by Big Pi Ventures, with Mainset also participating and existing backer Earlybird following on.

Big Pi partner Nick Kalliagkopoulos said embedded lending has become core infrastructure for digital marketplaces. “Embedded lending is now essential infrastructure for marketplaces, and finmid is built to deliver it,” he said.

He pointed to finmid’s capital-light structure and regional footprint as key advantages. “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,” he said. “Their traction in southeast Europe, a region many overlook despite its size, is proof of how much whitespace is still out there.”

Momentum Across Europe

Since launching, finmid says it has extended more than €4 billion in financing offers to businesses across 30 European markets. Its partner list includes Wolt, Delivery Hero, myPOS and efood.

The company says around 85% of borrowers return for additional financing, while businesses using its financing products have increased revenue on partner platforms by as much as 45%.

The new funding follows finmid’s €23 million Series A in April 2024 and comes as the company seeks to deepen its presence across Europe. Its next phase of growth will focus on new asset classes and additional platform categories, especially in mobility and e-commerce.

For finmid, the message is clear: embedded lending is moving beyond short-term cash flow support and into the financing of assets, fleets and marketplace ecosystems. The opportunity now is not just to lend more, but to become the operating layer through which platforms finance the businesses they power.

Paramount Closes $110 Billion Warner Bros. Discovery Deal, Creating Skydance Entertainment Giant

Paramount has completed its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, bringing together two of the most powerful names in media under a new combined company, Skydance. The deal, announced Tuesday, creates one of the largest entertainment mergers ever completed and reshapes the competitive landscape across streaming, film, television and cable.

A New Power Center In Global Entertainment

The combined company unites Paramount+ and HBO Max, alongside a broad portfolio of networks that includes CBS, CNN, MTV, TBS, Comedy Central and Food Network. It also gives Skydance control over some of the industry’s most valuable franchises, including The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, the DC Universe and Yellowstone.

For the industry, the scale of the transaction is as significant as the assets themselves. In an era defined by streaming competition and rising content costs, ownership of established intellectual property has become a strategic advantage akin to controlling a premium distribution network in a previous media cycle.

Ellison Expands His Influence

The merger places one of the world’s largest entertainment studios under the control of David Ellison, who only last year completed the combination of Skydance Media and Paramount. With this latest transaction, Ellison is accelerating his rise as one of Hollywood’s most influential executives.

The Ellison family remains Skydance’s largest shareholder, backed by the financial power of Larry Ellison, the Oracle co-founder and David Ellison’s father. That support gives the company considerable flexibility as it integrates two sprawling media businesses and seeks to compete more aggressively across platforms.

Legal Hurdles Cleared Before Closing

The deal’s completion follows settlements with a coalition of U.S. states and a Hollywood writers’ union, removing the principal legal obstacles that had threatened to delay or derail the merger.

Paramount first announced in February that it would pursue Warner Bros. Discovery after a bidding contest with Netflix, which had earlier struck its own agreement to acquire Warner Bros.’ film and television studios and streaming operations, excluding the cable networks. Paramount strengthened its offer by promising shareholders additional cash if the deal failed to close by a set deadline and by agreeing to cover the breakup fee owed to Netflix.

What Skydance Says Comes Next

“Today is a historic day, not just for Skydance but for our entire industry,” Ellison said in a statement. “From the start, our ambition was to bring these two storied studios together and create a stronger competitor, with the talent, resources, and reach to tell great stories in every genre, on every platform, for audiences everywhere. Our focus now turns to the future: building a company that empowers creatives, entertains audiences and rewards shareholders. We couldn’t be more excited to get to work.”

Skydance said the combined company will generate nearly $70 billion in annual revenue. The company’s Class B shares are set to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange today under the ticker symbol SKYD.

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