TrueLayer has raised $27M in a round led by CDP Venture Capital, Italy’s state-backed investor, with new and existing backers joining. The London company says the money will deepen its presence in Italy.
TrueLayer builds account-to-account payments on open banking rails, letting shoppers pay straight from their bank account rather than through a card. Chief executive Francesco Simoneschi frames the bet as infrastructure for Europe, and notes that around 70 staff, roughly a quarter of the company, are already in Italy with Milan as a core engineering hub.
The company has raised about $350M in total and counts Stripe and Tiger Global among its investors. It was founded in London in 2016 by two Italians, Simoneschi and Luca Martinetti.
Why it matters: pay-by-bank is the most credible structural challenge to Visa and Mastercard’s grip on European online checkout, but adoption depends on merchant confidence and bank APIs that vary by market. Landing a state investor as a lead is a signal that European policymakers want an alternative to US card networks to actually scale, and it gives TrueLayer a domestic champion in a market where incumbents are entrenched.
