Netherlands-based financial services firm ING last year launched a €300m ($348m) strategic investment fund called ING Ventures that will make investments into companies that are shaping financial services.
It will form part of ING’s Chief Innovation Office and will be headed by Benoît Legrand, who stepped up to the role this year after initially being CEO of ING Ventures and global head of fintech. The establishment of the fund follows some 150 partnerships ING has made with fintech companies.
ING Ventures is focussed on seed and early-stage fintech companies as well as later-stage investments in companies that already have significant traction in the market, in countries where ING is operational, or where it plans to enter.
At launch Legrand, who had previously been CEO then president of ING France, said: “As we see changes in the external environment happen faster and faster, we have to anticipate and step up our pace as well.
“Establishing this fund is yet another way for ING to use the digital revolution as a growth opportunity and help transform the bank to become the go-to platform for financial needs and become part of other platforms.”
ING is fully funding ING Ventures, which is intended to commit the capital over the next four years. It already had 15 portfolio companies, ING having begun by participating in the $135m round closed by peer-to-peer lender Kabbage in late 2015, and now has a portfolio of over 20.
The firm has since contributed to a series of deals, including the $160m round completed by another lending marketplace, WeLab, in January 2016, and a $107m round for distributed ledger technology developer R3.
ING Ventures recently hired a managing director, Frederic Hofmann, as well as two associates bringing the team to seven.
Legrand’s own entrepreneurial experience came during the dot.com bubble before the millennium when he founded office supplies distributor Well.com but joined ING after 2000 as head of projects and partnerships and working his way up the bank over the next near-two decades.
