By now we have become almost numb to the giant rounds raised by the challenger banks in the UK. It was a few weeks ago when we started to hear murmurs of a new round for Revolut. The $500 million Series D was led by TCV and values the company at $5.5 billion. Revolut has now raised an incredible $836 million. Interestingly, Revolut is deciding not to share names of existing investors who participated in the round. Absent from the release shared yesterday was whether the company had closed $1 billion in debt that was rumored to be led by JP Morgan.
Revolut now has over 10 million customers, centered mostly in Europe and the UK. They are also live in Singapore and are in beta in Australia. While Revolut has ambitions to expand to more countries they are focused on their launches in the US and Japan.
According to TechCrunch’s coverage of the round:
- The total number of users has grown by 169% in 2019.
- Daily active customers grew by 380% in 2019.
- Revenue grew by 354% in 2018.
- Revenue from premium subscription plans (Revolut Premium and Revolut Metal) have grown by 154% in 2019.
With the new funds the company plans to improve their existing product set and grow revenue. Revolut will announce new lending services for both consumers and businesses through Revolut for Business. Revolut currently offers services for customers in the UK which are not currently available in other markets.
Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky included the below comment in the press release:
“We’re on a mission to build a global financial platform — a single app where our customers can manage all of their daily finances, and this investment demonstrates investor confidence in our business model. Going forward, our focus is on rolling-out banking operations in Europe, increasing the number of people who use Revolut as their daily account, and striving towards profitability.”
It is hard to digest the amount of money that is pouring into digital banking startups in Europe. Monzo, N26, Revolut and Starling all seem to be in a race to raise as much money as possible in order to grow their customer base all while expanding to new regions and launching new products. It is safe to say that this is the most interesting area of fintech to watch over the coming years.
