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Pennylane, Qonto, Agicap, Pleo and Mollie have one thing in common. They all use Chift<\/a> in one way or another to manage integrations with other services. And this relatively young Belgium-based startup just raised a \u20ac2.3 million seed round ($2.5 million at today\u2019s exchange rate).<\/p>\n Many fintech startups rely on integrations to make their product work with their customers\u2019 financial stack. They often end up building countless of connectors and partner integrations to keep financial information consistent across several products. As their integration ecosystem grows, they sometimes rely on an iPaaS provider (integration platform-as-a-service).<\/p>\n Chift essentially acts as a third-party integration expert. It works a bit like Codat<\/a> in the U.K. and Merge<\/a> in the U.S. Instead of building connectors one by one, Chift offers a set of unified APIs that are compatible with the most popular financial tools out there.<\/p>\n For instance, Chift has developed an accounting API that is compatible with French accounting software from Sage, Cegid and Pennylane. The company has also developed integrations around invoicing tools, e-commerce platforms and point-of-sales software.<\/p>\n Chift has decided to focus on financial tools first. \u201cWe\u2019re integrating with tools that generate financial data,\u201d co-founder and CEO Gauthier Henroz told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n Unlike other industries, the fintech market is still relatively fragmented \u2014 each European country has its own accounting or invoicing platforms. But it can be useful to be able to access financial data from any SaaS product.<\/p>\n As more companies start relying on Chift, the startup can add more connectors. All of Chift\u2019s clients can benefit from these new integrations. As an added benefit for Chift, it creates a barrier to entry to newcomers.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Europe, that\u2019s where all the complexity lies. Things are going to be different in every country, particularly for accounting, points of sales and invoicing tools,\u201d Henroz said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe help our customers, who then upsell or open up new markets. There\u2019s very little churn because you\u2019re integrated, you\u2019re connected, you connect them to others and you create new opportunities for them,\u201d he added later in the conversation.<\/p>\n Developing an integration isn\u2019t a one-off project either. Companies release updates to their APIs, which can lead to failures. Chift is in charge of maintaining these integrations. SaaS companies can focus on their core product instead of those integrations.<\/p>\n Investors in the seed round include Entourage<\/a> (Pieterjan Bouten\u2019s fund), Shapers<\/a> (Philippe Teixeira da Mota\u2019s fund), Seeder Fund and several business angels. \u201cOur goal is to become the European leader,\u201d Henroz said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n