About bunq
bunq was founded in 2012 by serial entrepreneur Ali Niknam (1981) after he secured the first European banking permit in over 35 years. He set out to radically change the traditional banking industry and was bunq’s sole investor until 2021, financing the company with €98.7m of his own money. This provided bunq with the freedom and independence to build a bank rooted in the wants and needs of its users.
In July 2021 bunq announced the largest series A round ever secured by a European fintech. bunq raised €193 million in a deal with British private equity firm Pollen Street Capital, valuing bunq at approximately €1.6 billion. The first investment of external capital has helped bunq to further expand across Europe and to continue incorporating M&A as part of its business growth strategy. As part of the deal, bunq acquired Capitalflow, a Dublin-based company which lends to SMEs across a broad range of sectors in the Irish economy. In May 2022 bunq welcomed 5.4 million new users to its community with the acquisition of Belgian fintech TriCount, a move that made bunq the EU’s second largest neobank.
In February 2023, bunq became the first EU neobank to report a quarterly profit of €2.3 million and achieve structural profitability. In March 2023, bunq announced that it has doubled user deposits since 2022 and reported its balance sheet soared to €2.3B (up 91% since March 2022). Later that same year, bunq announced its bid to enter the US market by applying for a banking license. This way, bunq brings its proven and user-centered approach to banking to location-independent people and businesses in the US.
Our People
Ali, Founder & CEO
Ali Niknam (1981), born in Canada but from Iranian descent, set up his first company when he was just 16 years old. In his early twenties he founded TransIP, the biggest domain name and web hosting provider of the Netherlands. In 2012 he set out to change the banking industry radically and founded bunq
Bianca Zwart, Chief of Staff to bunq CEO Ali Niknam
Being bunq’s founder and CEO’s strategic confidant, Bianca enables Ali Niknam to scale bunq’s vision globally. Involved in all facets of the business, she combines strategic thinking with getting shit done, removing operational roadblocks that stand in the way of bunq’s mission to fundamentally change how millions of people spend, save and invest their money.
As former head of PR at bunq and having worked as a trusted communications advisor to numerous influential entrepreneurs over the years, Bianca knows how to build, visualize and convey stories of fast-growing tech companies - with bunq’s audacious mission to radically change the banking industry as a prime example. She became bunq’s first Chief of Staff in 2022.
Samantha de Groen, Product Marketing Manager at bunq
Raised in Miami and having earned higher education degrees from institutions in the US and the Netherlands, Samantha de Groen is taking care of delivering products that make life easy and showing the world how they respond to users’ wants and needs.
Throughout her time at bunq, Samantha built the company’s CRM Marketing and Product Marketing tools from the ground up and launched bunq’s Easy Green, the neobank’s flagship subscription plan that empowers users to offset their carbon footprint just by using bunq.
Passionate about bunq’s users, Samantha works closely with Data & Research, Product Development, and multiple marketing teams to tell bunq’s story across different channels. She also sees to it bunq’s product is tailored to the needs of its users across different markets. To that end, Samantha is responsible for validating and testing the neobank’s product offerings and messaging in new markets in support of bunq’s ambitious international expansion strategy.
Brian Spaans, Head of Finance at bunq
As Head of Finance, Brian balances bunq’s profitability with user happiness while he oversees accounting, FP&A, Regulatory Reporting and Treasury functions at bunq.
Throughout his time at bunq, Brian assembled a highly-skilled Finance and Treasury team that contributed to the neobank’s sustainable growth and execution of bunq’s ambitious M&A strategy. Moreover, Brian pioneered bunq’s world-class annual ESG report and helped bunq gain 10% of the insured mortgages market in the Netherlands in just 6 months since launch of bunq’s Easy Mortgages.