Trade Republic, a Berlin-based fintech firm, has reportedly achieved a €12.5 billion valuation through a secondary share sale this past week that supported by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. The recent transaction has involved early investors selling €1.2 billion in shares to a mix of new and existing backers, including Sequoia, Accel, TCV, Thrive Capital, Wellington, Fidelity, and Khosla Ventures.
As reported by the FT and other media outlets, this latest deal provided liquidity without injecting fresh capital into the company, more than doubling its previous €5 billion valuation from a 2022 funding round.
Founded in 2015 in Munich as Neon Trading by Christian Hecker, Thomas Pischke, and Marco Cancellieri, the company had initially emerged from a bank accelerator program.
Hecker, with experience in investment banking, serves as CEO, while Pischke and Cancellieri contributed to early development. After bootstrapping and securing a €600,000 investment in 2017, Trade Republic relocated to Berlin and obtained a full banking license in 2019.
It has so far reportedly raised $1.3 billion in total funding, with a key $900 million Series C in 2021 that had been led by Sequoia at a $5.3 billion valuation.
The firm operates a mobile-first platform focused on low-cost investing, saving, and spending, often compared to Robinhood for its commission-free trading model. Revenue comes from payment for order flow, where it earns fees by routing trades to partners; modest transaction charges like 1% on certain deposits; and interest on customer cash balances.
Some of the products now include access to stocks, ETFs, bonds, derivatives, and cryptocurrencies with fractional shares; savings accounts offering 2% interest paid monthly; and Visa debit cards with 1% cashback invested into user plans.
Deposits are protected up to €100,000 through partnerships with banks like Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan. Growth has been steady, with over 10 million users across 17 European countries and assets under management exceeding €100 billion.
The user base is said to have doubled to 8 million by early 2025, with 65% being first-time investors and one-third from outside Germany.
Expansion included opening branches in France, Spain, and Italy in 2025 for localized services like automated tax filings.
The company reported its first profit in 2024.
Competitors include eToro for social trading, DEGIRO for low-fee brokerage, Interactive Brokers for broad market access, and Robinhood’s limited EU operations.
The recent deal highlights investor confidence in European retail fintech amid regulatory changes, such as EU fee restrictions, and positions Trade Republic for potential mergers or partnerships with traditional banks.
CEO Hecker has noted the transaction reflects a shift toward private stock ownership in Europe, driven by German pension reforms.