Finperks founders raise €3.4M to build the 'Stripe for prepaid'

finperks, a Berlin-based startup founded by the team behind Barzahlen/viafintech, has closed a €3.4 million pre‑Seed round to build an API layer connecting banks, HR platforms and fintechs to prepaid product capabilities across Europe.

The round was led by Motive Partners and seed+speed Ventures and will be used to expand the engineering team, deepen brand partnerships and scale operations across additional European markets.

Finperks — launched in 2025 by Achim Bönsch, Sebastian Seifert and Andreas Veller — positions itself as the infrastructure play for prepaid rewards, cashback and employee benefits. The founders point to a fragmented vendor landscape that forces banks and platforms to stitch together issuing, compliance, settlement and brand relationships for each new product rollout.

“Banks need cashback to retain and engage users. HR Platforms need benefits as a logical extension to upsell clients. None of them want to build prepaid infrastructure. They want to plug into it,” Sebastian Seifert told EU‑Startups.

Finperks says a single API gives partners access to over 1,000 brands across Europe and enables use cases such as:

In a LinkedIn post announcing finperks’ launch, Seifert argued the prepaid segment is large, fast‑growing and poorly served. “The prepaid payments industry is a massive €1.2 trillion ($1.4 trillion), double‑digit growing market, yet outdated and slow‑moving,” he wrote, as reported by EU‑Startups.

He added that many brands now rely on prepaid products as a major checkout option but that the backend involves multiple intermediaries, slowing product launches and degrading user experience.

The founders bring relevant experience: Barzahlen/viafintech — the bank‑independent cash network they built — was acquired by NYSE‑listed Paysafe in a nine‑figure deal in 2021. That exit and operational know‑how around payments give finperks credibility when courting banks and global brands.

Finperks says it is already live with several platforms. Payment app Flizpay uses the API to deliver brand‑funded cashback (averaging 5%) instantly into users’ bank accounts at point of purchase. HR platforms Recardy and Paylo are distributing Germany’s tax‑free employee benefits through finperks without building extra infrastructure on their side.

“Like cash has been in our first venture, prepaid is an often hidden and underestimated product — but it addresses real needs: budget control, easy access to meaningful perks and financial empowerment,” Seifert wrote on LinkedIn, according to EU‑Startups.

Finperks joins a wider wave of startups turning legacy payment niches into API products. If it can maintain fast integrations and deliver measurable ROI for banks and HR buyers, the company could become the de‑facto rails for prepaid benefits across Europe.