Bonn, Munich — As the first seed inves­tor in the Munich-based fintech startup givve, HTGF sells its shares to the French, inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting, Up group in a multi-million exit.
Foun­ded in 2010, the sale will give the startup a much larger deve­lo­p­ment oppor­tu­nity in the finan­cial services sector. As a tech­no­lo­gi­cal market leader, givve has been able to gene­rate enorm­ous value deve­lo­p­ment and win well-known custo­mers since 2016.

givve: More than 250,000 card users in Germany
Fintech givve is alre­ady estab­lished in the employee loyalty market in Germany: More than 6,000 corpo­rate custo­mers use the givve cards. This works like a prepaid card that employ­ers can use to reward their employees while also enjoy­ing tax bene­fits for non-cash bene­fits. There are alre­ady more than 250,000 card users in Germany.

Up group offers loyalty programs, incen­tive and payment solu­ti­ons, among others. The Up group employs more than 3,400 people. The parent company is a cooperative.

givve tech­no­logy: machine lear­ning and auto­ma­ted payment processing
Above all, the inte­gra­tion at the Up group offers givve grea­ter oppor­tu­ni­ties for deve­lo­p­ment. The tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped in-house by givve includes auto­ma­ted payment auction matching proces­ses that save staff capa­city in payment proces­sing. Moreo­ver, these proces­ses are constantly impro­ving through machine learning.

Until now, givve tech­no­logy has only been used in the area of employee reten­tion. The Up group offers a much wider range of services, which opens up a grea­ter variety of possi­ble applications.

Up goup: New stra­te­gic investor
The acqui­si­tion by the Up group will not change anything for givve custo­mers for the time being. And the brand will also be retai­ned for the time being.

Patrick Löff­ler, Co-Foun­­der and CEO of givve: “We could­n’t think of a better stra­te­gic inves­tor than the Up group. Not only do they under­stand our busi­ness very well, they are also active in far more busi­ness areas than we are. givve will bene­fit greatly from this large network and the exper­tise it provides.”

HTGF: Seed inves­tor reco­gni­zes technology’s poten­tial early on
HTGF reco­gni­zed the promi­sing FinTech tech­no­logy in givve at an early stage and sees the FinTech and block­chain sector as an incre­asingly signi­fi­cant and growing market with high deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in the future.

Jens Baum­gärt­ner, Invest­ment Mana­ger of HTGF: “The foun­ding team has always convin­ced through the conti­nuous pursuit of long-term and stra­te­gic busi­ness goals. The tran­sac­tion comes at exactly the right time and opens up enorm­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties for the team to grow even faster with their mature technology.”

About givve
The company was foun­ded in 2010 by Patrick Löff­ler (CEO) and Alex­an­der Klai­ber (CTO). The givve prepaid credit card is the most flexi­ble voucher in the world and can be used at more than 30 million accep­tance points around the globe.

As a mone­tary addi­tio­nal bene­fit from the employer, the givve prepaid credit card is a smart way to increase wages. Compa­nies have the option of provi­ding their employees with tax-free bene­fits in kind amoun­ting to 44 euros. With the givve card, which can be desi­gned in the company’s corpo­rate design, employees can use this amount as they wish. Thus, givve offers compa­nies an advan­ced and sustainable tool for employee reten­tion and moti­va­tion as well as for incre­asing employer attrac­ti­ve­ness and is employee moti­va­tion that pays off. www.givve.com

About Up group
Up connects people, compa­nies and regi­ons by deve­lo­ping manage­ment, rela­ti­onship and tran­sac­tion plat­forms. Up deve­lops inte­gra­ted solu­ti­ons that meet the needs of diffe­rent part­ners, custo­mers and users. Up faci­li­ta­tes access to food, culture, leisure, educa­tion, home care, social assis­tance, expense manage­ment, and incen­tive and loyalty systems through its solu­ti­ons. With 3,465 employees and opera­ti­ons in 19 count­ries, Up is present in the daily lives of 26.6 million people world­wide. In 2017, total sales amoun­ted to 494 million euros. Up is an inde­pen­dent group whose parent company is a coope­ra­tive and parti­ci­pa­tory company. www.up.coop