Penta Bank: Creating a smarter business bank for modern teams.

In 2016, business banking in Europe was broken. Opening an account took weeks. Interfaces felt like outdated admin tools. Startups and small businesses were underserved — no modern features, no real support. Traditional banks just didn’t care.

From my couch in Berlin, we launched Penta, a digital business bank built for founders and small businesses. Six years later, we had: 60,000+ business customers, €70M+ in funding, a €200M exit, and a product that changed how businesses bank in Europe.

Early days

My Role

Co-founder & Head of Product Design

Co-founder & Head of Product Design

Co-founder & Head of Product Design

Co-founder & Head of Product Design

I owned the full experience, from early brand and onboarding to design systems and growth. In over 5+ years, I:

I owned the full experience, from early brand and onboarding to design systems and growth. In over 5+ years, I:

I owned the full experience, from early brand and onboarding to design systems and growth. In over 5+ years, I:

I owned the full experience, from early brand and onboarding to design systems and growth. In over 5+ years, I:

Shaped product from idea to acquisition

Built and led a 12-person design team

Defined and scaled our design systems

Led cross-functional squads across product, growth, and marketing

Steered the brand through launch, growth, and maturity

What we set out to do

Penta wasn’t just a slick UI on top of legacy systems. It was a rethink of what business banking in the 21st century should feel like.

Penta wasn’t just a slick UI on top of legacy systems. It was a rethink of what business banking in the 21st century should feel like.

Penta wasn’t just a slick UI on top of legacy systems. It was a rethink of what business banking in the 21st century should feel like.

Penta wasn’t just a slick UI on top of legacy systems. It was a rethink of what business banking in the 21st century should feel like.

Account opening in under 15 minutes & 100% online

Instead of 3 weeks and only partially online

Access to modern tools traditional banks did not offer

Multi card management, budgets, roles, real-time visibility, business loans, accounting, 3rd party integrations

A brand that felt human and one can relate to, not "banky"

How we built it.

User-led product direction

We built a public Trello roadmap where users could suggest and upvote features, giving us daily signal on what actually mattered.

Multi-squad design leadership

I led 6 design squads: 5 product squads (cards, onboarding, integrations, reporting, insights) and 1 growth squad (ads, landing pages, campaigns).

Design system at scale

We built a React-based design system in Storybook + Figma. This sped up dev, reduced design debt, and kept UX tight across web + mobile.

Our brand

We launched with a bold, rebellious tone: bright visuals, edgy voice, and a startup attitude. As we scaled, our brand matured but we never lost our soul.

Little big things

We introduced the first vertically aligned business Mastercard. The vertical aligned card later became a standard in fintechs and banks across the world.

Results and impact.

12-person design team built and led

6 product squads run across all touchpoints

Onboarding time dropped from 3 weeks → 15 minutes

60,000+ businesses onboarded

€70M+ raised from top-tier investors

Acquired in 2022 for €200M

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