Most European digital payments run on rails owned outside Europe: American card schemes and US big tech wallets.
Merchants pay whatever fees those networks set, and regulators have little leverage over the infrastructure their economies depend on.
Account and wallet payments – money moving straight from a customer’s bank account or wallet, with no card network in between – are an alternative that’s gaining real traction. Wero, Europe’s account-to-account wallet, has passed 50 million users since launching in mid-2024. For merchants this means lower costs and instant settlement, provided the payments complete as quickly and reliably as card payments do.
Nopan is building the infrastructure that brings card payment-level reliability to account and wallet payments. Today, we’re proud to double down on our support.
Nopan has raised €7.2M to date, including a new funding round led by Newion, with follow-on investment from Seedcamp and Crane, and support from a group of fintech and payments angel investors.
Nopan’s platform sits between a business and its payment methods, routing each transaction down the most reliable path, and catching failures before they cost a sale. These systems have existed for decades in card payments, but they haven’t yet been established in account and wallet payments.
There are few founding teams better placed to build this foundational technology. Founders Konstantin Surkov and Nick Ryabov led payments at Netflix, where they spent years making payment methods work at enormous scale.
Nopan has quickly earned the trust of the wider financial services industry. Last year it secured its licence from the Dutch central bank, and it is one of the few startups invited to join the European Payments Initiative, the bank-backed scheme behind Wero, as a Principal Member. That institutional backing has translated into commercial momentum: the platform is live with initial customers, with growing interest from enterprises and Payment Service Providers across Europe.
“Nick and I experienced first-hand how much value can be created when payment methods are properly optimised,” said Konstantin Surkov, Co-Founder and CEO of Nopan. “Launching a new payment method is only the beginning. The real challenge is making it perform reliably across banks, customer behaviours, operational processes and, where relevant, across markets. Nopan was created to solve exactly that challenge.”
"Launching a new payment method is only the beginning. The real challenge is making it perform reliably across banks, customer behaviours, operational processes and, where relevant, across markets. Nopan was created to solve exactly that challenge."Konstantin Surkov ~ Nopan
“Nopan is addressing a clear and growing need in the payments market,” said Pieter Welten, Partner at Newion. “Account and wallet payments represent a major opportunity, but the infrastructure required to make them perform at scale is still emerging. With its deep merchant-side payments experience and highly focused technology platform, we believe Nopan is uniquely positioned to become a category leader in this next phase of payments.”
The funding will support Nopan’s next stage of growth: expanding its payment method coverage across Europe, further developing its optimisation capabilities, and strengthening its commercial presence with digital businesses and fintechs. We’re proud to continue backing them as they build the next generation of payments infrastructure.