LONDON: Revolut, a British digital banking app, has raised around US$800 million in a new funding round led by Softbank’s Vision Fund and Tiger Global Management, valuing the company at around US$33 billion. The fundraising makes Revolut Britain’s most valuable fintech firm, and on paper, it is now worth slightly more than mainstream lender NatWest’s market capitalisation.
Revolut, founded in 2015 by Nik Storonsky, a former Credit Suisse trader, and Vladyslav Yatsenko, a software developer, has attracted more than 16 million customers with products such as foreign exchange, debit cards, and stock trading. The London-based company has won customers by undercutting mainstream banks’ rates for currency exchange and other products such as cryptocurrency investments.
The new funds will be used to help with product development and marketing in new countries where Revolut is expanding, particularly the United States and India, according to Chief Financial Officer Mikko Salovaara. The fundraising will not affect Revolut’s plans to go public, he said. “We think we will go public eventually, but we have no immediate plans to go public,” he said.
“Like Revolut, we want to see even more fantastic British Fintech success stories,” he said (Reporting by Lawrence White; editing by Jason Neely and Rachel Armstrong)/n
