Solaris valuation rebounds to €500M, fueling co-founder's suit against SBI
What's the deal? Berlin banking-as-a-service fintech Solaris is again valued at nearly €500 million in company documents, according to Manager Magazin. That marks a sharp rebound from early 2025, when its implied value collapsed to just €25,000 during a rescue round led by Japan's SBI Holdings.
Why now? The revised figure hands co-founder Andreas Bittner fresh ammunition in his lawsuit against SBI. Bittner and other former shareholders filed legal action at a Berlin regional court, seeking to have several resolutions from Solaris's February 2025 annual meeting declared "null and void."
What's the backstory? Solaris, once valued at €1.6 billion in 2021, faced financial difficulty and raised roughly €140 million in a Series G round earlier this year. SBI put in around $100 million and secured a stake of more than 70%, becoming majority owner.
For investors who sat out — including HV Capital and FinleapDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → — the round meant near-total loss. The value per share plunged from €7,000 to 10 cents, according to Bittner.
What's the argument? Bittner says no third party confirmed the low valuation, and that a fairer figure at the time would have been about €600 million. "Corporate law prohibits inappropriate special advantages for individual shareholders that are to the detriment of others," said his lawyer, Wolfgang Schirp.
The rebound is not proof the earlier valuation was improper. The core question is whether the 2025 financing and dilution were fair when they happened — the near-€500 million figure is evidence the plaintiffs may cite, not a verdict.
What could go wrong? Solaris remains in a costly turnaround. It has cut roughly a fifth of its workforce, is pursuing an AI-focused restructuring, stays under restrictions from financial regulator BaFin, and has pushed its profitability target to 2028.
The signal: SBI's rescue kept Solaris afloat but left early backers wiped out — a familiar outcome in fintech down rounds. The swift recovery in paper value shows how contentious crisis-era pricing can become once a company stabilises, raising the stakes for how rescue financings are structured and valued.
Read more: deutsche-startups.de, Tech.eu
Image credit: d.i.
