- TrueLayer has raised $27M in a round led by Italy’s CDP Venture Capital.
- TrueLayer and CDP frame the deal as a push for payment rails outside US card networks.
- TrueLayer says more than 30M consumers use its Pay by Bank network across 22 countries.
Luca Martinetti and Francesco Simoneschi became friends at school in Rome. In 2016 they started TrueLayer in London. The company just announced a $27 million investment led by Italy’s CDP Venture Capital and said more than 30 million consumers use its Pay by Bank network in 22 countries.
The round includes a consortium of existing and new investors, and it was announced a day before Simoneschi’s appearance at Wave by Vento in Turin. TrueLayer says Pay by Bank lets consumers pay directly from their bank account, instantly and securely, using European open banking infrastructure instead of US card networks.
“We started TrueLayer with a simple belief: Europe deserves payment infrastructure built in Europe. Having Italy back that belief means a great deal to us personally, especially to our talented team in Milan, who work hard every day to build the future of European payments,” said Simoneschi, TrueLayer’s co-founder and CEO.
Why Italy’s venture arm is backing a London company
CDP Venture Capital is owned 70% by CDP Equity and 30% by Invitalia, and it manages 15 funds with more than €4.9 billion in assets, according to the announcement.
Mario Branciforti, who heads its Large Ventures fund, said: “Europe needs payment infrastructure it owns and controls, and we are investing across the continent to help build it. TrueLayer is a clear example of what that looks like in practice, with a network already operating at scale in 22 countries. Our role is to back Italian talent, and the engineering team in Milan is developing the skills and the technology that will keep Italy at the centre of European payments for years to come.”
TrueLayer says about 70 of its staff are in Italy, roughly a quarter of its workforce, which implies a headcount near 280. Milan is one of its core engineering hubs, and it expects to keep hiring there through 2027.
Pay by Bank is growing, but the hard numbers come from the UK
Open Banking Limited, which oversees the UK scheme, says payments across the nine biggest UK banks passed 1 billion in June 2026. Monthly payments topped 40 million for the first time in May, and annual payment volume rose 45% in the year to July 2026. The monthly picture is less tidy: in June, single domestic payments slipped 1.2% while recurring payments rose 6.7%.
Research and Markets forecasts the global open banking market will grow from $39.89 billion in 2025 to $288.36 billion by 2033, a rate of 28.2% a year. The pressure point is cards: Visa and Mastercard handled more than €7 trillion of European transactions in 2023 and account for 95% of UK card transactions, according to Payments Industry Intelligence.
TrueLayer is not alone. Token.io, which raised a $40 million Series C in May 2022, took an undisclosed strategic investment from HSBC in June 2025. Volt raised a $60 million Series B led by IVP in June 2023, with EQT Ventures, Augmentum Fintech, Fuel Ventures, and CommerzVentures. Amsterdam’sNopan has raised €7.2 million to date, including a July round led by Newion with Crane and Seedcamp, as Tech Funding News reported. Banked raised a $20 million Series A led by Bank of America in 2022.
TrueLayer has also grown by acquisition. It completed its purchase of Swedish paytech Zimpler on March 3, and on May 29 it announced the acquisition of in3, a Dutch buy now, pay later provider, which adds consumer credit to Pay by Bank.
In February, eBay Ventures made an undisclosed strategic investment as eBay added Pay by Bank at UK checkout. TrueLayer lists Ryanair and Just Eat among its customers, and its May announcement pointed to Amazon and eBay as recent adopters of Pay by Bank.
What the $27M does not settle
TFN reported in July that TrueLayer had raised $321.8 million, and it became a unicorn in 2021. In October 2024, a $50 million extension to its Series E led by Northzone, with Stripe, Temasek, Tencent, and Tiger Global, valued it at about $700 million, Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.
This round is just over half that size. TrueLayer’s revenue was £20.3 million in 2024, up from £12.4 million in 2023, tech.eu reported.
The test is whether public capital like CDP’s keeps flowing into Europe’s Pay by Bank race or stays a single Italian deal. That will say more about the category than the $27 million.
