Penta

Overview

Penta was a Berlin-based digital business banking provider for German small and medium-sized enterprises, freelancers and the self-employed. It was acquired by the French SME finance platform Qonto in 2022, its customers were migrated to the Qonto platform, and the Penta brand was subsequently retired. Penta does not operate as an independent company today.
Why this entity matters

Penta is the clearest German example of what happened to the first generation of SME neobanks. It proved the demand — tens of thousands of German small businesses opened accounts with a provider that had no branches — but it never obtained its own banking licence and remained dependent on a partner institution for the regulated layer. That combination made it valuable as an acquisition target and difficult to sustain as a standalone business, and its sale marked the start of consolidation in German business banking.
Company or institutional background

Penta was founded in Berlin in 2016 by Lav Odorović and Luka Ivicevic, with a founding team that also included Jessica Holzbach and Igor Kuschnir, and launched its German business account at the end of 2017. It operated as a front-end provider on the licence of Solarisbank rather than as a licensed bank in its own right, and ran teams in Berlin and Belgrade. In 2019 the Berlin company builder finleap acquired the business. By 2022 Penta served around 50,000 business customers with roughly 200 employees, and Markus Pertlwieser was chief executive, with Lukas Zörner as managing director.
Role in the DACH startup and technology ecosystem

In its operating years Penta was one of the defining names of the Berlin FinTech cluster alongside N26, Kontist and Holvi, and one of the most visible customers of the Solarisbank banking-as-a-service model. Its acquisition and wind-down as a separate brand is now used as a reference point in the DACH ecosystem for the limits of the licence-free challenger model.
Selected relationships and affiliations

Penta was acquired by finleap in 2019 and by Qonto in 2022. Its regulated banking services were provided by Solarisbank. Following the acquisition its team was absorbed into Qonto's German organisation, and Lukas Zörner became Qonto's vice-president for Germany.
Startuprad.io relevance

Startuprad.io covered the Qonto–Penta transaction as it developed, first reporting the advanced talks and then the confirmed deal in

Neobank Deal Week: Qonto Confirms Buying Penta — Kontist Is Selling As Well At Discounted Price — Founder Interview
Published: 15 March 2026
Last updated: 14 August 2026
Coverage type: News
https://www.startuprad.io/post/neobank-deal-week-qonto-confirms-buying-penta-kontist-is-selling-as-well-at-discounted-price-fo

in the same week that Kontist also changed hands.

French Neobank Unicorn Qonto in Advanced Talks to Buy Berlin-Based Neobank Penta
Published: 15 March 2026
Last updated: 14 August 2026
Coverage type: Analysis
https://www.startuprad.io/post/french-neobank-unicorn-qonto-in-advanced-talks-to-buy-berlin-based-neobank-penta
Public source context

Public information used for this record is drawn from Qonto's own https://qonto.com/en-de/penta/penta-joins-qonto and its corporate blog post of 30 September 2022, from German trade reporting on the acquisition and the end of new-customer onboarding, and from Startuprad.io's own coverage of the transaction.

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Canonical record: https://www.startuprad.io/entities/penta