The Series A pitch deck template founders need in the AI era

Bioptimus raises $41M to develop a ‘GPT for biology’ 

Gorilla, a Belgian startup that helps energy providers crunch big data, raises $25M

Mistral secures €600m funding as valuation soars to almost €6bn

Fertility tracker Natural Cycles nets $55M, sees IPO on horizon

Carbonfact is a Carbon Management Platform For the Fashion Industry

Payflows Raises €25m as B2B Fintech Reigns

Helcim raises $20M amid payments fee price war

German Robotics Startup Raises $43M To Automate Smaller Factories

An LLM for biotech: French startup Bioptimus raises €35m seed

Jow's bespoke menu app attracts $13M investment for US expansion

Closinglock, now with $12M, wants to prevent real estate transactions fraud

iink puts its digital stamp on property insurance claim lending following $12M Series A

As Brite raises $60M, account-to-account payment grows

Axel Weber joins advisory board of Raisin as deposits soar to €50bn

Pet telehealth company Airvet closes on $18.2M to embark on enterprise focus

How VC Headline notched a 30% stake in Brazil’s biggest startup acquisition in 5 years

9 payments startups to watch, according to investors

Defacto gets new credit facility to provide instant financing to small companies

Meet 34 rising stars making waves in Europe's venture capital industry in 2023

Visa $1 billion buyout of Brazil's Pismo eases fintech M&A slowdown

France's Mistral AI Raises $113M in Big EU Startup Debut

Julie Wainwright is back with a new, venture-backed startup

Skincare Telehealth and Consultation Platform GetHarley Raises $52M

Investors Turn to AI-guided Dealmaking to Gain Edge over Rivals

Ex-Mambu CTO's New Startup Raises Seed Round to Help Banks Cut Tech Hires

Go1 Snaps Up Speed Reading App Blinkist to Expand in Enterprise Learning

Primo is the IT Tool for Companies that are Too Small for an IT Manager

Motion Raises $6M to Help Creative Teams Quantify their Impact

DBeaver Takes $6M Seed Investment to Build on Growing Popularity

Honeycomb Scores $50M Investment as Observability Platform Thrives

Savvy Games Group to Buy Mobile Game Publisher Scopely for $4.9B

Bianca Padilla, Co-Founder & CEO of Carewell, Named to Inc. Magazine's 2023 Female Founders 200 List

Goldman Keeps on Keepin’ on with Raisin in Fresh €60M Round

AG5 Throws a Lifeline to a Manufacturing Industry Drowning in Spreadsheets

Elyn Slightly Delays Online Payments so You Can Try Before You Pay

Attio Raises $23.5M to Build a Next-gen CRM Platform

How Thrive Market Reached $400M in Sales While Making Online Grocery Shopping More Sustainable

Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev to Help Companies Authenticate Users Without Passwords

Fetch Refreshes Company Name, Makes Fetch Happen

Homa Raises another $100M for its Data-driven Mobile Gaming Tools

Danish Podcaster Podimo Raises $59M for Shows, Expansion

EV Charging Platform Monta Raises at $155M Valuation  

Defacto, a French Fintech Startup that Offers Loans to Small Businesses, just Raised $16M

Solid Banks $63M for Easier Deployment of Embedded Fintech Products

Headline Closes $950M Spread Across Three Funds for Startups in US, Europe, LatAm and Asia

Endurance Events Marketplace Let’s Do This Raises $60M Series B

Cloud Storage and Data Streaming Platform LucidLink Raises $20M

Party Round: Air Raises $10M from Institutional Investors and Over 50 Individuals

Brazilian Fintech Creditas Lands $4.8B Valuation

Austria’s PlanRadar, which Digitizes Construction and Real Estate Docs, Raises $70M Series B

Swell Secures $20M to Develop More Adaptable Headless Commerce Infrastructure

European Podcast Startup Podimo Raises $78M to Fund Content, Market Expansion

Attio Wants to Build the CRM for the Airtable Generation

SoftBank, Amazon, Accel and Others Put $108M in Brazilian Banking and Payments Infra Provider Pismo

Clyde Raises $41M To Deliver a Comprehensive Product Lifecycle Platform for Merchants and Their Customers

French Startup Swile Gets Unicorn Status with $200M SoftBank-led Fundraising

The Pitch Deck AI Startup Kili Used to Raise $25M

Bright Health Latest Insurer To Launch IPO

German Fintechs Raisin and Deposit Solutions Join Forces

Gopuff Enters UK Rapid Delivery Market with Fancy Acquisition

JON USEROVICI & ASTRID MOULLÉ-BERTEAUX — JAN 20, 2025

The Headline Pitch Deck Template for AI Apps

The Next Wave of Marketplaces Will Be Smarter Than Ever

The Prosumer Power 50: Best Prosumer Companies to Watch

Headline AGM Recap: 11 Key Insights from 16 Headliners

Revolutionizing Receipts: How Pi-xcels is Moving Toward a Sustainable and Data-Driven Future

The Pre-Seed and Seed Consumer VC Market Map

Climate Fintech: Opportunities and Ambiguities in a Nascent Space

Grassroots Growth: Announcing the Launch of Headline’s New Growth Strategy and Team

What’s your Brand Plan? Part 1: Brand Architecture

TAYLOR BRANDT & ZEEZA COLE (BCV) - JUNE 11, 2024

 These Are 2024’s Top 50 Vertical SaaS Startups

Data Modeling Made Easy ; Investing in SqlDBM

TAYLOR BRANDT & JAKE HORWITZ - MAY 14, 2024

The Rise of Tech-Enabled Procurement - And What We're Searching For Next

JONATHAN USEROVICI & NELSON CASATA - APRIL 18, 2024

The AI Finance Platform to Rule Them All: Investing in Payflows

MATHIAS SCHILLING & THOMAS GIESELMANN - APRIL 18, 2024

Announcing Well-Deserved Promotions at Headline

Why Capital Efficiency is Optimal at 0.5+

TAYLOR BRANDT & NICOLE FARB - MARCH 26, 2024

Investing in Prescient AI: Next-Gen Marketing Mix Modeling

Investing in Helcim: On a Mission to be the World's Most Loved Payments Company

KING GOH, SOPHIA SAMUTIN & YUSUF JANAHI  

Still Plenty of White Space: 4 Fintech Trends

MATHIAS SCHILLING, TAYLOR BRANDT & DOMINIC WILHELM

Ageing, Energy, Upskilling: 4 B2B SaaS Trends

Upstream/Downstream: Trends in Sofware Infrastructure

From Combatting Loneliness to Convenience: 5 Consumer Trends

Polishing the Nivoda Brand: Putting Diamonds on Full Display

CONRAD CHU & JACOB CONGER — NOVEMBER 20, 2023

Powering the Future of Cloud-Based Collaboration with LucidLink

ANNA WU & NICOLAS VON BLOTTNITZ — NOVEMBER 1, 2023

Introducing Deepdive: Transforming Financial Data into Founder Insights

SOPHIA SAMUTIN & KING GOH — OCTOBER 18, 2023 

Investing in IINK: “Getting America Paid”

NELSON CASATA & JONATHAN USEROVICI — OCTOBER 4, 2023 

Lightning Up Open Banking: Investing in Brite

From Sudshare to Poplin: A Fresh Start for Laundry

ROMERO RODRIGUES & GABRIEL ALVES — AUGUST 7, 2023

Investing in Easy Access to Health & Wellness in Brazil with Fiibo

SOPHIA SAMUTIN & KING GOH - July 20, 2023

Real-Time Payments in the US: The Tale of 2 Rails

KING GOH & JONATHAN USEROVICI - July 18, 2023

The Present and Future of Global Fintech Investing

ROMERO RODRIGUES & MATHIAS SCHILLING — JUNE 28, 2023

Local to Global Fintech Innovation: Celebrating Pismo’s $1B Acquisition by Visa

TAYLOR BRANDT & MATHIAS SCHILLING — June 22, 2023

Investing in Heard: Purpose-Built Software for Therapists

Investing in the Beating Heart of the Health Sector with Fin-X

THOMAS GIESELMANN & CONRAD CHU — June 1, 2023

How We’re Building the Future of Tech-Enabled Venture Investing

TAYLOR BRANDT & ZEEZA COLE — May 25, 2023

The 2023 Top Vertical SaaS Companies to Watch

How We’re Bringing our Team Forth to the Office

MATHIAS SCHILLING & TAYLOR BRANDT — MAY 16, 2023

Investing in Nivoda: The Future of the Jewelry Supply Marketplace

The Story of Blinkist and its Acquisition by Go1

MATHIAS SCHILLING & ROMERO RODRIGUES — MAY 2, 2023

From Silicon Valley to Rio: Our Global Approach to Investing

Taylor Brandt & Nicole Farb - April 18, 2023

Investing in Motion: Empowering Creatives with Data-driven Insights

Jacob Conger & Thomas Gieselmann - April 11, 2023

Investing in the Future of Universal Database Management with DBeaver

TAYLOR BRANDT & ZEEZA COLE — MARCH 9, 2023

Creative Drives Business: It’s Time to Empower Design Teams 

Are We Witnessing Another Database Renaissance?

Three Tips for Creators Launching Products — Plus, Startups That Can Help

NICOLAS VON BLOTTNITZ — NOVEMBER 8, 2022

The GPT-3 Boom: Generative AI is Changing How We Communicate

NICOLAS VON BLOTTNITZ — OCTOBER 11, 2022

A More Holistic Way to Calculate Your LTV-to-CAC Ratio

These Sectors Will Thrive In (Not Just Survive) Today's Market Downturn

3 Lessons From a Market Downturn: What Consumer Behavior Can Teach Us About the Future of Commerce

NICOLAS VON BLOTTNITZ — AUGUST 18, 2022

Net Retention May Hide What's Really Going On With Your Customers. Here's Why

A More Accurate Equation: Calculating Your Average Retention to Perfection

The Calming Force in Commerce Supply Chain Chaos? Digitization

We’ve Raised $950M to Lift the Next Generation of World-Class Companies

3 Principles for Assessing Product-Market Fit

NIKKI FARB & TAYLOR BRANDT — MAY 25, 2022

Sustainability is Table Stakes: Successful Brands Add Deeper Value to Gain Loyal Customers

An Open Invitation for Women to Join the Web3 Movement

Creators' Careers are Booming, But They Need Business Tools ASAP

Capital Efficiency in 2022: Rebalancing the Equation

TAYLOR BRANDT & NICOLAS VON BLOTTNITZ — MARCH 31, 2022

Gen-Z’s Top 3: The Next Generation will Define these Sectors

Acorns’ Market Opportunity Has Never Been Bigger — or More Urgent

The Lowdown on our First Investment Down Under: Zeller

Reimagining Drayage: The Supply Chain's Most Critical Link

This Headless Platform Will Power the Next Era of Commerce

Meet Pesto, The Most Satisfying Remote Work Solution

Powering the Power Sellers: How We’ll Sustain the Circular Economy

We Need to Talk About Pregnancy at Work Sooner — Even When it Ends in Miscarriage

JONATHAN USEROVICI & ILAN NABETH — OCTOBER 18, 2021

Landscape Map: Shopify's Growth Creates New Markets

JONATHAN USEROVICI & ILAN NABETH — OCTOBER 28, 2021

Landscape Map: Restaurants Fight for Independence

JONATHAN USEROVICI & ILAN NABETH — NOVEMBER 5, 2021

Landscape Map: The Rise of Vertical Biz Management Software

The Power of Pismo: Transforming the Banking Stack from São Paulo

Deposit Solutions + Raisin: Rivals Build Giant

A Match Made in Delivery Heaven: Fancy + Gopuff

Trending: Meet the Ultra-Popular Girl Band That’s Blurring the Lines Between JPOP and KPOP

Bioptimus raises $41M to develop a ‘GPT for biology’

Headline raises $865m and hires new head of growth

Payflows raises €25m as B2B fintech reigns

Code-generating AI platform Tabnine nabs $25M investment

iink puts its digital stamp on property insurance claim lending

France's Mistral AI raises $113M in big EU startup debut

Skincare telehealth and consultation platform GetHarley raises $52M

Go1 snaps up speed reading app Blinkist to expand in enterprise learning

Ex-Mambu CTO's new startup raises seed round to help banks cut tech hires

Primo is the IT tool for companies that are too small for an IT manager

Motion raises $6M to help creative teams quantify their impact

DBeaver takes $6M seed investment to build on growing popularity

Honeycomb scores $50M investment as observability platform thrives

Savvy Games Group to buy mobile game publisher Scopely for $4.9B

Goldman keeps on keepin’ on with Raisin in fresh €60 million round

AG5 throws a lifeline to a manufacturing industry drowning in spreadsheets

Elyn slightly delays online payments so you can try before you pay

Headline's spotlights - Discover the latest about our Headliners. Get to know where they come from, how they think, and the future they're creating. Find insights from around the world and how founders are making headlines!

Blog Latest | Headline

“I put myself through college riveting bumpers for the Chevrolet Monte Carlo. I literally sat on an assembly line all summer!”

“Whether you’re cooking or starting a company, you have to wing it. I’m not following a recipe."

The Latest from the Headline World

We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience. By continuing to use this website, you consent to the use of cookies in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Sorry, we already have your email in our system or your email is malformed

https://eventures.us12.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ec7ddadf71013e2f776708ca0&id=59fe66fe46&group[49033]

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.

Meet the Headliner: 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.

Lena Hackelöer, Founder of Brite Payments

On the Future of Payments, Profitable Growth & Klarna's Mafia

From the Team