Founded by Austrians in Germany, the startup N26 is one of the European fintech unicorns alongside Revolut, Monzo, or Wise. 42-year-old N26 co-founder Maximilian Tayenthal is said to have pledged 3,000 no-par shares, representing 2% of the N26 share capital, in exchange for a loan from Austrian private bank Schelhammer Capital Bank reports Finance Forward. In total, Tayenthal still owns about 9.5 percent of the company.
Pledging shares is quite a common practice for publicly traded companies, as we have seen with Elon Musk, who regularly pledges a portion of his Tesla shares to obtain loans. But it’s rare for private startups, partly because the valuation is more difficult for the bank granting the loan. The bank has no stock market price to fall back on as a point of reference.
Undisclosed Valuation
On paper, the N26 share package would have been worth about $180 million in the last financing round. At the time, the company said its enterprise value was nine billion dollars. However, N26 investor Allianz X most recently sold part of its N26 shares at a valuation of just three billion dollars. The pledged N26 shares would be worth about $60 million in this case. However, the actual value the bank accepts as collateral will likely be even lower. I
The Vienna-born Maximilian Tayenthal is one of the most active business angels in the German-speaking markets. His portfolio includes Aitme, a startup that develops robots for kitchens, and the banking startup Upvest or the Austrian money investment app Beatvest.
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