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A German DriveWealth raises a seed round

Lucinda Shen

Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios

Lemon.markets, a Berlin-based embedded stock trading company, raised €15 million ($16.5 million) in a mega seed round.

  • Lakestar and Lightspeed led the round, with participation from Creandum and System.one.

Why it matters: The success of DriveWealth, a fellow embedded stock trading startup valued at $2.9 billion in North America, is giving rise to similar businesses in Europe.

How it works: Like DriveWealth, lemon.markets gives companies the ability to offer stock-trading platforms to their customers.

  • It largely makes money off subscription revenue.
  • lemon.markets also takes a cut of the trading via payment for order flow — a controversial arrangement that has attracted the scrutiny of regulators around the globe. Lemon.markets says PFOF is a relatively small part of its business.

Of note: German banking-as-a-service company SolarisBank in March launched its own white-label securities brokerage product, which is among Lemon.market's competitors.

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