Celine Bayer

CELINE BAYER

Chief Technology Officer
Lemonway
Fintech Payment Processing
2025 TOP 30 EMEA CTOs 2025

Career History

Lemonway is a Paris-based fintech payments platform providing API-driven solutions that let marketplaces and crowdfunding platforms collect and disburse funds, hold money in escrow, and meet strict European KYC/AML standards while processing billions of euros in transactions across 29 countries. Backed by investors including Toscafund, Breega and Speedinvest, Lemonway has raised about €50m, most recently a €40m Series B in 2019, and continues to expand through acquisitions and product innovation.

Céline Bayer became Chief Technology Officer in 2023, tasked with automating and scaling Lemonway’s internal technologies and processes, enhancing efficiency, and improving customer service through opportunities offered by artificial intelligence. Under her leadership, the company has expanded its e-commerce payments offering by acquiring PayGreen, streamlined merchant onboarding and introduced more integrated KYC processes for both business and consumer platforms.

Bayer was appointed as CTO of Veesion in January 2022, and after a brief spell with BforBank joined Lemonway as CTO in 2023. Earlier she worked at L’Equipe. She holds a Master’s Degree in Engineering from ECE Ecole d’Ingénieurs.

About Lemonway

Founded in 2007, Lemonway has evolved into a pan-European payments provider processing transactions for over 400 marketplaces and managing more than 1.3 million wallets for platform users.

The firm raised about €50m in its Series B round, and in 2023 it hit profitability after doubling revenues to around €32m, with net income of €5m. It processed a business volume of €9.6bn in 2023 and €10.5bn in 2024. In 2025 it acquired French paytech PayGreen, broadening its e-commerce payments capabilities.

Lemonway is regulated by the French authority ACPR and holds a passport across many European countries; it supports clients with full escrow, wallet and payment processing solutions, plus a strong focus on secure, compliant workflows and scaling its technology infrastructure.

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