We sit down with Lena in Stockholm, where open banking fintech Brite Payments is being built. On a mission to equip merchants with instant payments and payouts, Brite is not only one of Europe’s fastest-growing fintech companies but also one of its few profitable ones.
An experienced payments executive, Lena started Brite in 2019 on a small angel-led seed and raised a $60M Series A from Headline and Dawn Capital in late 2023, the largest raised by a solo female founder that year. “I’m not the typical 'go-big-or-go-home founder,” she says as she shares her version of sustainable growth, why churn is the most important metric, and why the so-called Klarna mafia used to gather around bad pasta. The interview has been edited for brevity and for clarity. Reading time: 10’
First thing: What’s something people sometimes get wrong about Brite Payments? One thing is that we aren’t part of a third-party infrastructure. In fact, we’re a fully standalone payment method running on proprietary rails – Brite receives funds, collects, and reconciles them. It’s a complete solution, ready for the merchant to plug in. With us, money instantly moves between merchants and end users – in both directions – with significant savings potential compared to incumbent payment methods, including credit cards.
Now let’s take a big step back: What’s an early learning that you carry with you to this day? To tell things as they are but in a respectful way. This is something I learned from my dad, and I believe it has taken me to where I am now. I think people know me for speaking my mind. But when someone is rude to others, especially to those they might perceive as "less important," that’s a big red flag for me.
How does this apply to venture building? Never hire people who look down on others – whether it’s their direct reports or the office cleaning staff. In some startups, there's a noticeable difference in how misbehavior is handled depending on a person’s role or perceived value within the company. High performers, whether they are salespeople or rockstar developers, shouldn’t get a free pass on behavior that wouldn't be tolerated by the rest of the team. You can set high standards and demand a lot, but still treat everyone with respect. This holds particularly true for founders; you may have an inner voice telling you that things aren't moving fast enough, or that they are not being done the way you would do them personally, but especially as the business grows you need to appreciate that others don’t think the same way as you do. Back to workplace behavior, nobody should ever leave a meeting feeling bad about themselves.
Since you mention the workplace: What's an object you keep in your office to remind you of who you are? I have a ton of photos of my friends and their families. I work long hours, and I like it. As long as you still make time to spend with family and friends, it doesn’t have to become emotionally draining or a downward slope. I aim to speak with friends and family before and after work every day, bookending what can be very long work days. As a founder, there’s a risk of ending up in a “me and my problems” mindset, but speaking with people outside the business gives you perspective and helps keep you grounded.
Another thing I have on my desk is some of my very first business cards from my time at Klarna. Now, the branding isn’t nearly as slick as it is today, but it’s a reminder of where my journey in fintech started.
«When Klarna closed the $155M investment round in 2011, there was so much work to do that I went to the office on a Thursday morning and came home on Saturday at 5 AM. And I loved it.»
Let’s get to Klarna! You were there super early and with the company for almost 7 years. How did it start? I ended up in Stockholm by chance! I was wrapping up my Master's Degree and working on a thesis with quantitative data collection among a cluster of Stockholm’s science and tech companies. Klarna, at that time, was still a very Swedish company, doing online invoices, and looking to grow both geographically and in terms of the product offering. Like most Business School students back then, I had dreams of McKinsey or Goldman Sachs. When they approached me, I entered the interview more interested in getting interview experience than a job offer. My interview was with Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna’s founder. He was incredibly compelling, so I wanted to give Klarna a try and accepted. Then everything happened so fast. There was so much to do as Klarna was internationalising. Six months in I was promoted, and from there it was a wild entrepreneurial ride. When we closed the $155M investment round in 2011, there was so much work to do that I went to the office on a Thursday morning and came home on Saturday at 5 AM. And I loved it.
What’s your fondest memory of that time? The teamwork. Everybody really wanted to make it work and they cared. Even though things could get messy as the company grew, the early days had no politics. Everyone had a very “how can I help” attitude. Everyone would do a bit of everything. I was running around projects, Operations, PR, sales, and marketing. Brite’s COO, Alexander Kassai, was also at Klarna back then, and we must have had hundreds of vending machine dinners; really boring pasta with tomato sauce. The so-called “Klarna Mafia” formed around that bad vending machine pasta.
When did you know it was time to go? When I started feeling, “I’ve done this already, I already know how this works.” When Klarna acquired the German direct payments company Sofort, I saw that the company was loved by consumers and wildly successful with a high-margin but fairly basic product. It was my first exposure to account-to-account (A2A) payments. However, I received an offer to join a financial services company as Chief Product Officer. Having experienced sales and marketing at Klarna, I wanted to be on the other side and experience product development. Making that decision was very difficult and emotional, as I felt a great deal of loyalty towards Klarna. Just a few months in, I was CEO of the new company, which was eventually listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange.
And from there? Eventually, I started thinking: Why is there no instant payments product that combines a strong consumer brand and an easy-to-use product with a state-of-the-art platform and a compelling business proposition for merchants? Something that decreases the cost of payments for merchants overall, as well as taking away the credit and fraud risk. The idea of Brite Payments started forming. The turning point was talking with a friend about the account-to-account space. We agreed that the opportunity was massive, but disagreed on how it should be tackled. I started arguing that it should be done in a certain way, and the more we spoke, the more I realized I already had a plan of sorts. A plan for what became Brite Payments.
«I'm not the typical "go big or go home" founder. I have always had a big vision for Brite Payments but wanted to do things at our own pace and reach profitability as fast as possible.»
You are a first-time founder. Was it what you were expecting? I was mentally prepared for choppy waters and plenty of ups and downs. What I wasn’t prepared for were the sleepless nights in the early days. I was accustomed to getting little sleep because I had too much to do, but it was a new experience to wake up at four in the morning thinking, “This can actually go south and not succeed.” I started speaking with other founders and then realized this was completely normal. And it really is normal, in the early days of a business, to endure a lot of mental pressure. It gets better.
Tell me about the time it got worse. What was the toughest moment? When we had just launched our product, there was a time during which a competitor started going after our early customers really aggressively. They managed to take some large clients from us. We were at the point of almost breaking even, and all of a sudden, we were back to burning money and having to look carefully at our runway. It was like hitting a wall. Eventually, however, you rationalize and begin to see the value in greater diversification.
Sounds like a blessing in disguise... Some of our initial customers were quite international. This led us to open lots of markets quickly. We launched in Sweden, Finland, and the Netherlands in quick succession. We had no choice but to go where the customers wanted to go. Although this rapid expansion was costly, it got us thinking beyond the relatively small domestic Swedish market very early on.
«Sure, money can buy growth at all costs, but at a certain point, you start overpaying. You can spend a ton on marginal improvements and revenue that doesn’t stick. We don’t seek that.»
Your fundraising story stands out. You founded Brite in 2019, raised a small angel-led Seed, doubled profitability in 2022, and raised a $60M Series A from us and Dawn Capital in 2023. Why? I'm not the typical "go big or go home" founder. I have always had a big vision for Brite Payments, however I wanted to do things at our own pace, with the goal of reaching profitability as fast as possible. Seeing some of our peers raise significant rounds in early 2022 did make me question this growth strategy though. I wondered, are we scaling fast enough? But the market dynamics then shifted, and we’ve seen some of those companies that expanded very quickly needing to lay off staff and scrap expansion plans. It was the perfect time for us, however, to fundraise and use the strong foundations we had laid to move faster. But we won’t ever think in terms of spend, only of investment and growth. If we aren’t as fast as we should be, we're not going to be spending as much. To some extent, we're front-loading the investment. We are building a lasting business, and while we cannot preempt market developments, we want to stay in the sweet spot where we only tap into the side of the market that is sustainable for us to address long term. Sure, money can buy growth at all costs, but at a certain point, you start overpaying. You can spend a ton on marginal improvements and revenue that doesn’t stick. We don’t seek that.
How did you choose your cap table? We optimized for people, not for brands. Of course, the immediate question was: Does this fund have a good reputation? How large is the fund? Where are they in the fund lifecycle? From there, we thought about the individual investors. Conversations with fellow founders confirmed a universal truth: Money is interchangeable, but the real differentiator is the people you choose to work with. The question then changed to: Who are you likely to have a good relationship with? Who understands your vision? Of course, everyone promised "value ad," but I didn’t necessarily think we’d receive help and introductions. The fact that it has happened is something I have not taken for granted.
What’s the most important company metric? Boring answer, but it’s churn. It’s a good metric to see how good your product and company really are. Brite Payments has really low churn on both the merchant and the consumer side. Our business is reaching the age in which we can really appreciate it: When your company is one year old, customers that were onboarded three months ago don’t tend to churn yet. While some companies might be very focused on top-line growth and payment volumes, or transaction margins, I believe that churn paints a clearer picture.
«We treat trial or probation periods as actual test periods to get a real sense of the collaboration. If a team member continues past their trial period, it’s usually the start of a long tenure at Brite Payments.»
The churn among Brite Payments employees is also quite low, especially for a fintech. How have you achieved this? Firstly, we treat trial or probation periods as actual test periods to get a real sense of the collaboration. If a team member continues past their trial period, it’s usually the start of a long tenure at Brite Payments.
Secondly – and this is common in fast-growth startups – people can stay in the same role as the company grows while the nature of the role changes completely. For example, imagine running accounting in a 20-person startup in 2020. Two years later, the company might have 200 employees – same job title, but the job has gotten so many times bigger. With Brite Payments, we’ve tried to hire a lot of experienced and senior professionals who are still flexible – helping us to grow a team of leaders that are the right fit whether we have a headcount of 20 or 200. This has made sustainable growth so much easier.
How do you tackle the quasi-monopoly of Visa and Mastercard? First off, a lot of merchants don’t love card payments. They have to offer them because it’s the standard that everyone expects. But they aren’t reluctant to decrease the proportion of credit card payments. They are expensive, they are not that fast, and they aren’t that convenient in handling returns and preventing fraud. Secondly, we are getting to a point with our proprietary instant payment network – Brite IPN – where we cover enough markets to make us a suitable option to cover all the local needs of the largest merchants. Thirdly, the convenience of online banking apps is significantly improving, making non-card payments more attractive. Outdated methods like the scratch cards used by some banks are becoming obsolete, replaced by seamless mobile app integrations. The stars are aligning; market awareness is growing, consumer expectations are increasing, and Brite Payments technology is built on what’s going to be the next payment standard.
Are you building a startup that resonates with these themes? Feel free to reach out directly to our General Partner Jonathon Userovici here.