- UNIQA invests € 1 million in start-up
- Twisto develops innovative “buy now pay later” solution for e-commerce
- Twisto is UNIQA’s fifth start-up investment and the first in CEE
UNIQA Insurance Group AG (UNIQA) invests € 1 million into the Czech fintech company Twisto as part of a 5 Million series A investment round with Lead investor ING Group taking € 4 Million., Twisto offers modern short-term consumer finance solutions for daily use. Twisto has strong capabilities in innovative customer online scoring methods and data-driven marketing.
“We focus on the online generation and offer them to buy now, pay in 15 to 45 days free of charge. In Central and Eastern Europe 38 per cent of the population have limited access to financing solutions and this is where we see our opportunity” explains Michal Šmída, Founder and CEO of Twisto. Founded in 2013 Twisto has currently in total 200 000 customers in Czech Republic and is about to offer its services in Poland in 2018.
“UNIQA recognizes Twisto as an exciting investment opportunity in the financial services sector and believes in its promising, modern and innovative solutions. With our deep knowledge of Central and Eastern European insurance markets, we can contribute specialist know-how and experience. Investing and cooperating with various start-ups provides us with a deep insight in modern technologies and processes. This insight enables us to develop for our approximately 9.6 million customers value added expected and required in the digital age.” comments Thomas Polak Chief Innovation Officer in UNIQA Insurance Group AG.
The investment in Twisto is now the fifth start-up company in UNIQA’s portfolio, following FINABRO an Austrian fintech company and online adviser for personal savings and long-term investing; Fragnebenan.at, a neighborhood social network; Fincompare, a SME financing solutions platform; and INZMO, an insurtech company that sells insurance policies instantly via mobile devices and online.
About Twisto
Twisto is a Prague based FinTech that has been innovating online payments since 2013. The company is the leader in “buy now, pay later” deferred payments in the Czech Republic. Twisto served over 200,000 customers across 350+ online e-shops. The main pillar of Twisto is its proprietary risk scoring engine Nikita - a combination of big-data and machine learning algorithms delivering credit decisions in milliseconds. Nikita evaluates credit-worthiness and solvency of customers, bypassing the need to be linked to debtors’ registers or requiring sensitive personal information from customers.
Twisto equity from world-class investors, next to ING Group including: ENERN, Partners, Cezary Smorszczewski and Miton and UNIQA Group, one of the leading insurance groups in Austria and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
UNIQA
The UNIQA Group is one of the leading insurance groups in its core markets of Austria and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Around 20,000 employees and exclusive sales partners serve over 9.6 million customers in 18 countries. UNIQA is the second-largest insurance group in Austria with a market share of more than 21 per cent. UNIQA operates in 15 markets in the CEE growth region: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine. The UNIQA Group also includes insurance companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.