At the end of 2018, a Lithuanian fintech startup NEO Finance—a peer-to-peer lending platform—has attracted a 71.000 euro investment from Crosspring B.V., an incubator and seed investment company from the Netherlands. The investment was made as part of the crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs platform, through which NEO Finance raised a total of 216.000 eur. The Bank of Lithuania has also just approved Crosspring’s CEO Maurice Beckand Verwee as the member of the NEO Finance’s supervisory board.

“People is what attracted us to Neo Finance—young, professional, hard-working experts of their field. We have invested in several Fintech startups in Europe and we believe there is still a lot to disrupt within the financial industry. NEO Finance with its peer to peer lending concept is positioned well in a rapidly growing market,” says Maurice.

After working for a VC, from 2005 onwards Maurice has invested in and founded several ICT companies. He also founded Crosspring, which has a portfolio of over 10+ companies in Europe after investing in around 50 companies in Blockchain, Edtech, Fintech, Augmented Reality and other industries.

NEO Finance met with Maurice and other Crosspring team members on a EU funded Soft-Landing mission to the Netherlands. The mission was aimed at Fintech startups from across Europe seeking to meet the key local players and get hand-on training and practical information about scaling to the Netherlands. Proactively seeking advice and mentorship from Crosspring enabled NEO Finance to create a personal connection with Crosspring’s team, which eventually led to their decision to invest in the company.

Soft-Landing missions are organized by five partner organizations across Europe, led by a Lithuanian startup support organization Startup Division.