Digital banking challenger Lanistar raises £15m ahead of winter launch

London-based challenger banking service Lanistar has raised £15m ahead of its official launch which is due to take place later on this year. 

The injection of cash came from family members of CEO, Gurhan Kiziloz, boosting the company’s valuation to £150m.

Lanistar plans to use the funds to increase its employee numbers and gear up for its product launch. 

The fintech currently employees 45 staff in its London office and has a 150-strong customer support team based in Greece.  

The recent fundraise takes the total raised by the fintech to £17m, following a £2m seed round that it closed at the end of March 2020. 

Kiziloz, founder and CEO of Lanistar, said: “For far too long, the customer has been an afterthought in the minds of the banks.”  

“Rather than being seen as a valued client, whose views are treated with the utmost respect, the modern customer has been seen as nothing more than a statistic on a balance sheet.” 

The fintech made waves in the fintech world after it confidently announced that it “fully expected to become the next £1bn fintech company” and disrupt the current banking arena.

UPDATE 2020-10-20 - The original version of this story indicated that the £15m came from VC firm Milaya Capital, which was taking a 10 per cent stake in Lanistar, however there was later a change in the source of this funding and the article has been amended to reflect that.