Technology

Posted on October 31, 2018 by staff

Digital bank becomes UK’s latest unicorn

Technology

One of the UK’s fastest-growing digital challenger banks is now valued at more than £1 billion after securing a fresh capital injection from investors.

Monzo’s £85 million series E fundraising was led by US venture capital firms General Catalyst and Accel. Existing backers Passion Capital, Goodwater, Thrive Capital, Orange Digital Ventures and Stripe also contributed to the round.

Led by founder and CEO Tom Blomfield, Monzo announced just last month that it had surpassed one million users across the UK.

It also published a number of other milestone statistics, including that people had spent more than £4 billion using their Monzo cards so far.

The app-only bank currently employs 450 people but has plans to double that to 900 in the next year.

Monzo is also planning to raise an additional £20 million through a crowdfunding campaign later this year, which will be open exclusively to its customers through the bank’s app.

Fellow challenger bank and rival Revolut announced in April this year that its valuation had reached $1.7 billion after raising $250 million in funding.

In July, it revealed that it had surpassed one million UK users.