News

Digital bank Revolut valued at $33 billion in funding round led by SoftBank and Tiger Global

Nikolay Storonsky, founder and CEO of Revolut, on stage at the 2019 Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal.
Harry Murphy | Sportsfile for Web Summit via Getty Images

LONDON — British fintech firm Revolut said Thursday it had raised $800 million in a new funding round led by SoftBank and Tiger Global.

Revolut, which offers banking and trading services through an app, is now valued at $33 billion following its latest round, a sixfold increase on the $5.5 billion the company was worth last year.

The latest financing round makes Revolut the second-largest fintech unicorn — a private start-up worth over $1 billion — in Europe, behind buy-now-pay-later giant Klarna, according to data from CB Insights. It is also now the biggest fintech in the U.K., leaping ahead of payments firm Checkout.com.

The fresh cash comes from Japanese conglomerate SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 and U.S. hedge fund Tiger Global, which collectively hold a less than 5% stake in the company.

Revolut will use the money to invest in marketing, product development and international expansion, Mikko Salovaara, Revolut’s chief financial officer, told reporters Thursday. The firm is heavily focused on ramping up growth in the United States and India, he added.

Fintech start-ups have been on a funding frenzy lately, raising a record $33.7 billion in the second quarter of 2021, according to CB Insights. In Europe, the likes of Germany’s Trade Republic and the Netherland’s Mollie have raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors.

Salovaara said Revolut had no immediate plans for an initial public offering, having just raised a sizable amount of funding. He didn’t rule out an IPO this year but suggested it was unlikely. Last week, money transfer giant Wise went public in London’s biggest tech listing by market cap.

Revolut reported annual losses of £167.8 million ($231.9 million) in 2020, higher than the £106.7 million the company lost in the previous year.

The fintech made £222.1 million in revenue last year. That means Revolut’s new market value is more than 100 times its 2020 sales.

Revolut managed to break even toward the latter half of 2020 and was “strongly profitable” in the first quarter of this year, Salovaara said.

The company is banking on its expansion into new services such as crypto, stock trading and business accounts to reach profitability in the long run, CEO and co-founder Nik Storonsky told CNBC in a recent interview.

Articles You May Like

SpaceX to Launch 20 Starlink Satellites from California on November 9
Hogwarts Legacy Sequel Team ‘Coordinating’ With Harry Potter HBO Series Over Story Elements, Says Warner Bros.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Gameplay Deep Dive Details Combat, Exploration and Puzzles
Smart ring leader Oura plans international push as CEO touts new features and thinking on hardware
Sewage Surveillance Might Be a Powerful Tool to Fight Antimicrobial Resistance, New Study Reveals