NaroIQ Funding News -German FinTech Startup NaroIQ Secures €5.8 Million In Seed Round

The company offers a platform that helps businesses launch and manage ETFs and funds more easily and at a lower cost.

The round was led by VC firms Magnetic and Redstone, with existing investors—including U.S.-based General Catalyst—also increasing their investment.

“We are witnessing a once-in-a-generation shift: ETFs will replace mutual funds in the retail market over the next decade, which means that margins will shrink significantly,” explains Chris Püllen, Co-founder and CEO of NaroIQ. “Without a technological solution, only large fund providers with scale advantages will survive, creating an alarming concentration of power and wealth in the market.

“Our digital fund infrastructure levels the playing field, allowing smaller fund providers and management companies to offer their own ETF and fund products profitably, while ensuring investors continue benefiting from diverse investment options and innovative ideas.”

NaroIQ aims to create a European alternative to the U.S.-dominated ETF landscape. While the European ETF and fund market is seeing record inflows, outdated manual processes remain a major barrier, limiting innovation and concentrating assets with only a few big players.

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To solve this, NaroIQ’s digital infrastructure streamlines fund creation and management—cutting costs, speeding up time-to-market, and enabling more flexible product development with lower upfront investment.

Despite the European UCITS and AIF market holding €22.9 trillion in assets (according to EFAMA), the infrastructure supporting it is still largely outdated.

A recent Ernst & Young study rated the asset servicing market’s digitalisation at just 1.6 out of 5. Another study by zeb revealed that while asset managers' assets under management grew by 8.8% over the past five years, profits only rose by 0.7%, highlighting margin pressures.

NaroIQ sees this as a clear call for digital-first, cost-saving solutions—exactly what it aims to provide with its flexible platform.

David Rosskamp, Founding Partner at venture capital firm Magnetic, adds: “With foundational financial services still reliant on manual, fragmented back-end processes, NaroIQ’s digital infrastructure is critical to unlocking efficiency, real-time transparency and cost savings. The team’s API-first, cloud-native platform addresses the sector’s most painful workflows and positions NaroIQ to drive the next wave of innovation in fund servicing across Europe and beyond.”

NaroIQ says it is addressing a major issue in the European ETF market: despite being one of the largest in the world, it’s heavily dominated by just a few players and lacks a strong, Europe-based ETF administrator.

According to the company, the top five ETF issuers hold 75% of the market, and U.S.-based firms manage two out of three European ETFs and handle administration for four out of five.

NaroIQ wants to change this by building a high-performance, European-made fund infrastructure that also opens doors for smaller fund providers and management companies.

The newly raised capital will go toward technical development and securing regulatory licenses. One of NaroIQ’s key goals for this year is launching its first partner integrations.

About NaroIQ

Founded in 2022 by Chris Püllen and Nils Krauthausen, NaroIQ is building a digital platform that helps companies launch and manage their own ETFs and funds more efficiently and at a lower cost. Its modular technology is designed to make the ETF and fund market more accessible, especially for smaller providers, by cutting down on costs and complexity—ultimately benefiting investors.