NAGA Group: Lessons from a Nine-Year Struggle for Profitability

For nearly a decade, The NAGA Group AG represented one of the European fintech sector's most compelling, turbulent, and instructive stories. Founded with the ambitious vision of becoming an "everything financial" social network, a German contender to Israel's eToro, NAGA went through a dramatic corporate evolution: a celebrated initial public offering in 2017, a $50 million initial coin offering (ICO) at the height of the crypto boom, a severe stock price collapse, accounting restatements, and tens of millions of euros in balance-sheet impairments. However, preliminary results for the first half of 2026 indicate that NAGA may finally be turning a corner.

In August 2026, NAGA published its preliminary financial results for the first half of 2026, reporting its first-ever profitable first half in company history. Key H1 2026 financial highlights include net profit swung to positive €0.9 million, compared with a net loss of €2.6 million in H1 2025. EBITDA rose 47% year-on-year to €4.4 million (reported) and €4.9 million (+64%) on an FX-adjusted basis, expanding reported EBITDA margins from 9.3% to 15.9%. Group revenue fell 12% YoY to €27.7M (€28.6M FX-adjusted) as management deliberately prioritized client quality and lifetime value over volume. Marketing spend fell 25% YoY to €11.2M (40.5% of revenue, down from 46.5%). Operating, personnel, and tech expenses dropped 20% to €8.8M via an AI-supported model. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) surged 32% to €2,757, while CAC held at €1,117, driving the CLV/CAC ratio to 2.5x (up from 2.2x in H1 2025). The company reaffirmed its full-year 2026 guidance, projecting Group revenue between €68–75 million and EBITDA of €10–15 million.

"The first half of 2026 demonstrates that our strategic repositioning is gaining traction," stated Octavian Patrascu, CEO of The NAGA Group AG. "We achieved a profit in the first half for the first time in our history, while materially improving the profitability of our business model."

To understand why NAGA took more than nine years to achieve a profitable first half, we need to look back at the company's origins. Founded in August 2015 by Yasin Qureshi, Benjamin Bilski, and Christoph Brück, NAGA was built around a central idea: retail trading was fragmented, intimidating, and disconnected from modern social habits. NAGA's flagship product, originally launched as SwipeStox and later renamed NAGA Trader, introduced a Tinder-like "swiping" interface and copy-trading functionality. Retail clients could scroll through trading ideas, automatically copy successful traders, and share financial posts in an integrated social feed. The vision quickly attracted high-profile backing: Fosun Group became an anchor shareholder in 2017, Deutsche Börse Group jointly backed Switex GmbH, and Hauck & Aufhäuser joined as an early supporter.