Upvest Appoints Quiron Cunha as CFO to Drive European Expansion and AI-Led Growth

Upvest has appointed Quiron Cunha as Chief Financial Officer to lead its expansion across Europe and the UK. Coming off a $125 million funding round and a fivefold increase in order volume, the hire signals a shift toward scaling operations and preparing for major regulatory shifts in the German pension market.

What was announced

Quiron Cunha joins Upvest from B2B payments firm Mondu, where he served as CFO and raised over €150 million. His mandate at Upvest involves steering the company through a period of rapid scaling, specifically targeting the 2027 rollout of Germany’s new Altersvorsorgedepot. Upvest is currently preparing to power more than 20 launches for this pension scheme with both new and existing clients.

The appointment follows a year of significant operational growth. In 2025, Upvest processed more than 100 million orders, representing a fivefold increase over the previous year. Strategic milestones include a partnership with Quirin Privatbank and its digital platform, quirion, which will see more than €11 billion in assets migrated to Upvest’s infrastructure. Additionally, DKB has announced plans to double its securities accounts to 2 million by 2030 using Upvest’s technology, while the UK-based fintech Plum has selected the firm to consolidate its investment business.

Cunha intends to integrate AI and automation deeply within the finance function. This internal focus mirrors Upvest’s broader strategy of providing AI-enabled tools to its client base, aiming to maintain strategic focus while managing high-growth volumes. His previous experience includes leadership roles at Zalora in Southeast Asia and management consultancy Falconi in Brazil.

"Fintech is a crowded space, and it’s rare to find a company that has built a category of its own. Upvest has done exactly that. The pace of innovation here is remarkable, the growth potential is huge, and the impact is real: millions of people across Europe and the UK are investing through platforms built on Upvest. I’m excited to get started and help shape the next chapter."

Quiron Cunha, Chief Financial Officer of Upvest

The companies involved

Upvest is a Berlin-based investment infrastructure provider that has established itself as a critical layer for European fintechs and traditional banks looking to offer brokerage and investment services. By providing an API-first platform, the company allows its clients to offer fractional trading and automated investment plans without building the underlying regulatory and technical stack from scratch.

The firm operates in a highly regulated environment, holding several licenses from BaFin to provide securities, crypto brokerage, and custody services. This positioning has allowed it to attract a diverse range of partners, from neobanks to established private banks. Under the leadership of Founder and CEO Martin Kassing, Upvest has secured significant backing, including a $125 million capital injection earlier this year, to fuel its ambition of becoming the backbone of European retail investing. The company’s recent focus on the UK market and the upcoming German pension reforms highlights its strategy of capturing large-scale migrations from legacy systems to modern, cloud-native infrastructure.

What FF News has reported before

FF News has tracked Upvest’s rapid expansion through several high-profile partnerships. In late 2026, the publication covered how Quirin Privatbank and Upvest Partner to Modernize German Wealth Management Infrastructure, a move involving the migration of billions in assets. Earlier that year, Plum Selects Upvest to Power UK Investment Infrastructure in Major Expansion, marking a significant win in the British market. Other notable coverage includes Zopa Bank Launches UK-First Targeted Support to Help 15 Million Brits Start Investing and Mintos Disrupts European Wealth Management with Zero-Fee ETF Investing from €1, both of which highlight the growing demand for the flexible investment rails Upvest provides.

What this means

The appointment of a CFO with a background in both B2B payments and retail strategy suggests Upvest is moving past its initial build phase into a period of aggressive industrialization. The focus on the Altersvorsorgedepot is particularly telling; it indicates that the real battleground for investment infrastructure is shifting from simple retail brokerage to the much larger, stickier world of pension assets. As legacy banks face pressure to modernize or lose market share to agile neobanks, the providers of the underlying "plumbing" are becoming the kingmakers. The challenge for the sector now is whether these infrastructure players can maintain profitability while handling the massive operational load of multi-billion-euro migrations.