Paypercut, a Bulgarian fintech startup focused on cross-border payments in Central and Eastern Europe, has secured €5 million in seed funding to expand its operations and develop its payment infrastructure across the region.
The round was led by Concentric, Passion Capital, and Araya Ventures, with participation from SMOK Ventures, Portfolio Ventures, BrightCap Ventures, BlackWood, SABAH.fund, MFG Invest, Main Set, and angel investor Matt Doka. This brings Paypercut’s total funding to €7 million since its founding.
Addressing a fragmented market
The startup plans to deploy capital toward expansion into additional CEE markets, product development, infrastructure improvements, and the application for an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence. According to co-founder Stoil Vasilev, the company sees a significant gap in how the payments industry has traditionally approached the region.
“CEE has always been treated as an afterthought by the payments industry, seen as too fragmented, too many local specifics, too complicated,” Vasilev said. “We built Paypercut to fix that. This round gives us the resources to go further and faster: more markets, more payment options for merchants, and the infrastructure to move money across the way it should have always worked, instantly and at a fraction of the cost.”
The region’s payment infrastructure has long been characterized by complexity, with multiple currencies, regulatory frameworks, and local banking systems creating friction for merchants conducting business across borders. Paypercut’s approach targets this inefficiency by offering merchants streamlined cross-border payment capabilities designed specifically for CEE market conditions.
Growing fintech momentum in the region
The funding round reflects continued investor confidence in fintech solutions addressing regional payment challenges. The Central and Eastern European market has increasingly attracted venture capital interest as startups identify opportunities in underserved financial services segments.
With the new capital, Paypercut joins a growing cohort of CEE-focused fintechs working to modernize regional payment infrastructure. The company’s focus on merchant payments and cross-border transactions positions it within a competitive segment that has seen several well-funded entrants in recent years, though regional payment specialists remain relatively scarce compared to Western European equivalents.
The EMI licence pursuit is particularly significant, as it would allow Paypercut to operate as a regulated financial institution across multiple EU member states, reducing reliance on third-party payment processors and potentially offering greater control over transaction costs and settlement speeds.
The startup’s funding success underscores investor appetite for infrastructure plays that tackle regional inefficiencies. As European payment markets continue consolidating around larger platforms, specialists focused on overlooked geographic segments represent a distinct investment thesis for venture firms examining the continent’s fintech landscape.