Over the last few weeks, we’ve been taking a close look at more than 200 European early-stage startups that are working on innovations in the FinTech space. During our sourcing and review process we exclusively focused on startups which were founded between 2015 and 2016. In order to source the initial list of more than 200 European FinTech startups, we used platforms like Funderbeam, Dealroom, AngelList, Linkedin, Crunchbase (and several more), but we also spoke with a number of industry experts to ensure that we’re finding the best startups possible.

The next step was to create a ranking on the basis of this extensive list of FinTech startups. For each company we tracked the employee count (according to LinkedIn or the company itself), social media followings, website traffic, and the degree of innovation. Afterwards we gave each of these data points a specific weighting, which resulted in a concrete score for all of the listed startups. The result is a ranking with 40 of Europe’s hottest FinTech startups. You can purchase/download it here for just €69 (£58.10).

Below you’ll find a little appetizer in the form of 7 promising FinTech startups which are also included in our ranking report. We’re listing the companies below in no particular order. If you want to see the concrete order with all 40 startups, make sure to download our report.

Monzo: London-based Monzo is building a bank for people who live their lives on their smartphones. For people who want to get things done in a click and who don’t see the need for branches and cheque books. Monzo aims to provide the best current account in the world and ultimately to become an intelligent hub for your entire financial life. In August of 2016 Mondo (the startup’s initial name) rebranded to Monzo.

solarisBank is a tech company with a German banking license. The Berlin-based startup has built an API-accessible banking platform for the needs of the digital economy. Founded in 2015, the solarisBank platform enables digital businesses to create custom solutions for their unique financial needs. Together with its partners, solarisBank works towards the vision to boost the growth of the digital economy by offering payment services, banking services, and add-on services.

Scalable Capital: Founded in December of 2014 and launched in 2015, Scalable Capital is a digital investment manager with ofices in Munich and London. The startup offers a proprietary technology which dynamically allocates each investor’s portfolio based on a quantitative measure of their risk appetite. Scalable.Capital uses forward-looking projections, based on recent market developments, to measure the level of risk in the ETF products the client is invested in, and reallocates their portfolio according to their risk limit.

Curve: The Curve founders believe that payments should be easy, secure and accessible from every interface and device. The London-based startup Curve was founded in 2015 and turns all your debit and credit cards into a single Curve card which is available across the UK and EEA issued by Wirecard Card Solutions Ltd pursuant to license by MasterCard International. The card’s brain lives in your phone, and gives you instant notifications wherever and whatever you buy.

baningo: Vienna-based FinTech startup creates an innovative and unique customer-bank-relationship. Founded in 2015, baningo serves its customers with a simple and consistent online access to banks and their advisors. For bank advisors baningo provides a completely new sales-pipeline. baningo currently focuses on the Austrian market only, but the business model could be expanded into other markets soon.

Plutus enables you to make contactless Bitcoin payments at every local brick & mortar store with a NFC-enabled point-of-sale terminal. The liquidity for bitcoin conversion to fiat is provided by a peer‐to‐peer trading network called the PlutusDEX – it runs as a autonomous application on the Ethereum blockchain. The Plutus app also awards you a rebate on the blockchain for in‐store purchases. These are digital tokens called Plutons, which can be sent to friends or converted into contactless balance which can instantly be used towards the next purchase.

Cleo is a free intelligent assistant for your money. Imagine if you had your own team of McKinsey consultants, Goldman Sachs associates and hedge fund analysts who advise you on your money. Well, that’s what Cleo wants to be for you. CLEO brings state-of-the-art deep learning research together with the simplest UI to help you save more money. Cleo accesses your transaction history to deliver relevant insights into your finances.

In addition, our report ranks the 15 leading FinTech hubs in Europe and takes a short look at the potential impact of the Brexit. If you are interested to read this and see all 40 startups of our ranking, you can purchase/download our report here for €69 (£ 58.10).

The payment options are PayPal and Credit Card, but you can also send an email to Thomas@EU-Startups.com, and we’ll send you the report and a corresponding invoice (payable via bank transfer).