By Ryan Weeks on Sunday 30 July 2017
Digital banking challenger sees over £17m of pledged investment prior to £4m Seedrs campaign going live.
Digital banking challenger sees over £17m of pledged investment prior to £4m Seedrs campaign going live.
Revolut shouldn’t have much trouble closing its equity crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs. The campaign, which launched this morning, has attracted more than £17m in pledges from over 40,000 investors prior to going live. Now launched, the campaign will open in stages throughout the week, with the majority of shares allocated by random ballot.
The Seedrs round comes shortly after the closing of a c. £50m Series B fundraise, announced a few weeks ago, which was led by renowned venture investor Index Ventures. Balderton Capital and Ribbit Capital also took part, with the money destined to fuel the app’s global expansion into Asia and North America. Individual investors in the crowdfunding campaign will invest on the same terms as these venture capital firms.
When the crowdfunding campaign was first announced back in March, Revolut advised that sign-ups to its newly-launched Premium account would ensure privileged access to the fundraise. True to its word, individual investments for Premium users have been capped at £2,000, while other investors will face a £1,000 limit. These caps have been put in place in an attempt to apportion equity to as many retail investors as possible. This mirrors the approach taken by rival banking challenger Monzo, which raised £2.5m via Crowdcube in March.
Revolut has been expanding at breakneck speed in the past six months, and now boasts more than 750,000 globally. Beginning with an easy-to-use currency conversion tool, Revolut now offers a broad range of services, ranging from spending analytics to a marketplace of third-party products. The company launched personal IBAN accounts across Europe a few weeks ago, and continues to add new currencies. Its plans extend as far as integrating cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum into the app. Revolut also launched a business-facing version of the app in June, and has landed a number of FTSE 100 firms as clients.
British tennis ace Andy Murray, a frequent investor on the Seedrs platform, has brought into the growth story, and is among the pre-registered investors.
“We are incredibly excited to open our Series B round to as many members of our 750,000 strong community as possible through our crowdfund on Seedrs,” said Revolut founder & CEO Nikolay Storonsky (pictured). “Word of mouth by our loyal customer base is the reason that Revolut has achieved so much in just two years. As a token of our appreciation we are offering them the chance to play a longer term role in the fintech revolution by owning equity in a fast scaling fintech as we embark on our global mission.”
