Penta, a Berlin-based Fintech, has announced a new feature to digitize company formation in Germany. Penta has launched “Compass” a platform that enables businesses to incorporate, create a share structure and open a bank account in less than 24 hours unlike the weeks long process experienced by most German startups today.
Penta is a digital bank account startup that has partnered with digital challenger bank Solarisbank.
Penta says that founders understand that incorporating a business in Germany can be difficult, taking 6-8 weeks because of the bureaucratic process of opening a bank account and registering with corresponding local and federal government bodies, like the Handelsregister. Penta says their process takes just 15 minutes of the founders’ time. Penta says it is offering this service for free.
Penta adds that Compass is just one of the first offerings they will announce to help founders ease the process of incorporating. In the coming months, Penta plans to offer an additional suite of products and services via a third party network who can help founders with legal work, and registration with government bodies in Germany. Penta’s goal is to fully digitize the incorporating process, like in the UK or Estonia where one can open a business in less than 20 minutes online.
Penta’s CEO Lav Odorovic explains that they want to completely digitize the company creation process removing friction and hassle.
“With Compass and our digitized “In Grundung” bank account, we have shortened the incorporation process already by half.” says Odorovic. “Compass by Penta will help founders focus on starting their business even sooner now.”
According to Doing Business, an index of how business friendly countries are across the world, Germany is ranked 113th in “starting a business”, its worst category in the index. With Penta’s Compass, this can be dramatically improved.
“In an increasingly globalized world Germany is competing with other EU countries to attract business. Considering so many startups and businesses are coming to Germany post-Brexit and because of the technology revolution, something should be done so that Germany can facilitate an easier way to start a business,” says Odorovic. “Facilitating bank account opening for business in foundation is our first step out of many to help German businesses start a business online in minutes.”