October 14th 2011 - Expanding its growing portfolio of digitally native financial services businesses, Anthemis Holdings Sarl, the strategic investment subsidiary of Anthemis Group SA, closed a €1.87 million round of new investment in Fidor Bank AG, a provider of online financial services and e-commerce banking solutions.

Formed in 2010, Anthemis Group invests in companies that leverage technology to build innovative and disruptive financial services businesses. Fidor Bank is reinventing banking with a more user-friendly, customer-centric and transparent approach that leverages modern web, mobile and social technologies making it a natural fit with our strategy and a significant addition to the developing Anthemis ecosystem.

Fidor Bank, together with its subsidiaries is a Munich-based provider of online financial services and e-commerce banking solutions with a focus on providing a modern, social banking and e-wallet service to their retail and corporate customers. Fidor’s retail customers can manage multiple currency accounts (including accounts denominated in precious metals and alternative virtual currencies), peer-to-peer lending and borrowing, and savings products all on one intuitive, simple-to-use platform. Through Fidor’s Communities and Online Solutions segment, it provides a unique and innovative financial experience to end customers. Fidor also has an innovative corporate banking platform targeting SMEs and e-commerce merchants.

The investment in Fidor Bank is a highly complementary addition to the existing portfolio of Anthemis companies; as a licensed bank with unique technology and a highly experienced management team, Fidor Bank will form a core element in the Anthemis Group strategy to build the leading “digitally native” diversified financial services group for the 21st century.

Sean Park, Anthemis co-founder commented: “Fidor Bank has built what we believe to be one of the best “Banking 2.0” platforms in the world and we are very excited to work with their excellent management team to help them grow their business aggressively both inside Germany and internationally. They are a fantastic addition to our portfolio and we have already identified a number of promising areas where Fidor Bank will be able to collaborate and partner with other companies in our ecosystem.”

Matthias Kroner, CEO and co-founder of Fidor Bank commented: “We are delighted to have Anthemis as a new strategic shareholder and we look forward to working closely with them to expand our business into new regions and products. We have already successfully implemented theCurrencyCloud.com platform from FX Capital Group, another Anthemis Group company and are confident that given their vision and network, Anthemis will provide us valuable support as we build a modern technology-enabled bank.”

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About Fidor Bank
Based in Munich, Germany, Fidor Bank AG received its banking license in 2009 and started operations in 2010 offering a variety of banking services uniquely adapted for e-commerce, mobile and the social web. The bank’s flagship FidorPay account targets e-merchants with a one-stop solution that covers both merchant and customer needs and provides a convenient cash management solution and a FidorPay Mastercard for POS transactions and cash withdrawls.
FidorPay allows customers to send money to email addresses, mobile phone numbers or even twitter users at low or no cost and customers can also manage peer-to-peer lending, crowd-funding, foreign exchange and precious metals all from the same platform. The unique Fidor Bank Community has over [70,000] members who can share their finance-related ideas and experiences while earning bonus rewards from Fidor for those recognized by the Community as adding the most value.
For additional information, please visit www.fidor.de

About Anthemis Group
Anthemis Group is a specialist investment and advisory firm providing strategy, leadership and capital to growth-stage companies with innovative business models at the intersection of financial services, markets and technology. Our vision is to build a leading digitally native, diversified financial services group, optimized to address the new emerging landscape of the Information Age.
For additional information, please visit www.anthemis.com

Media Contact:
Kim Melville-Smith
Email: kim[at]anthemis[dot]com
Tel: 0207 087 9050
Distributed on behalf of Anthemis Group by NeonDrum news distribution service (http://www.neondrum.com)