Etvas

Etvas GmbH is a Hamburg-based B2B2C company that operates a SaaS platform for card-linked offers (CLO) and value-added services aimed at banks, fintechs, financial services providers, insurers and e-commerce businesses. Its current positioning is a rewards platform that matches banking customers with personalised cashback offers from retailers and brands, presented inside online and mobile banking applications. Matching is based on anonymised card transaction data from both online and point-of-sale payments, and the company states it complies with GDPR as a German-based provider.

The platform also comprises a broader value-added services product set: a fully hosted, white-label Customer Portal with single sign-on and consolidated payment; the "Etvas Automat", which uses transaction classification and matching algorithms to pair contextual services with a customer's transactions (for example travel insurance after a flight purchase or an extended warranty after a laptop purchase); a Partner Studio; and a Marketplace through which third-party service providers can distribute their offerings. Integration options range from a hosted white-label portal requiring no IT work, through iFrame embedding, to API and SDK integration, with the company stating integration in "less than 200 lines of code". Platform attributes cited include ISO 27001 and GDPR compliance, BaFin-compliant money handling, multi-language support, 2FA enabled by default, technology-agnostic integration and hosting in Germany.

For insurers, Etvas frames its proposition as helping carriers move from claims handling to preventive, everyday services; for e-commerce, it offers checkout-adjacent service offers via a plugin. Service partners can build "Etvas Apps" using the company's design kit, developer tools, CLI, APIs and SDKs, and host them in the Etvas Cloud, in a model the company compares to the Shopify, Atlassian and Salesforce app stores.

Founding story

Etvas GmbH was founded in December 2019 in Hamburg by Sören Timm and Ilie Ghiciuc. Timm had worked for the British CPP Group since 2007, where he built up its German and Austrian business as Managing Director; CPP develops service products for the financial and insurance sector. Ghiciuc brought 17 years of experience as a CTO and IT entrepreneur and founded the product development agency Thinslices in 2010, through which he says he implemented over 150 IT projects and grew a team to 100 employees. The company name stands for "etcetera value added service". Both founders are described in the company's press kit as Co-Founder and Co-CEO.

Business model

Etvas licenses its platform to banks, fintechs, financial services firms and insurers on a SaaS basis and operates a two-sided marketplace connecting these distribution partners with value-added service providers, retailers and brands. Service partners can join the marketplace for free and distribute through all integrated business partners with a single platform integration.

For the card-linked offers product, banks, fintechs and financial services partners pay a set-up fee and licensing fees and receive 10% of every cashback paid out, while merchants pay 20% on the cashback amount paid out. On the value-added services side, the platform supports fixed prices, subscriptions, one-time payments, trials, packs and in-app purchases, with distribution partners setting their own prices for services sold under their own label.

Traction

Sparkasse Bremen is cited as one of the first customers, using the platform since 1 September and quoted at board level as treating value-added services as a core pillar of its strategy. The company's first service ecosystem covered security services, with further ecosystems around travel and online shopping planned. Etvas raised a 1M seed round in February 2021 from a syndicate including High-Tech Gründerfonds, main incubator, Sparkasse Bremen and Plug and Play, and previously received InnoFounder funding, INVEST accreditation and a place in the Next Commerce Accelerator.

Latest developments

The company's current website positions Etvas as the first rewards platform for card-linked offers in Germany, inviting banks and brands to become early adopters of card-linked cashback in the German market.