With the additional support of institutional investors such as German bank KfW, Belgian insurer Securex, and BNP Paribas, Blackfin Capital Partners has announced that it has reached EUR 180 million for the final closing of its fintech fund, the BlackFin Tech 1. The successful closure strengthens its claim as the largest independent fintech fund in Europe.

BlackFin intends to deploy the funds to support early stage fintechs all over Europe aiming to develop solutions in areas of retail banking, payments, investment banking, wealth and asset-management, insurance, insurance distribution, back office optimisation, as well as regtech. The wildly successful fund has already pumped EUR 15m into a Series A round for Dutch fintech Friss, a market leader in fraud detection for insurance companies.

Last year, Blackfin announced its first fund closing at EUR 100 million — evidencing sustained interest in fintech funds. Blackfin was founded in 2009, and has mostly been known for raising buy-out funds for companies operating in the financial services space.