Fronted raises £1m from Monzo ‘mafia’ of former employees

Just over six months after its last funding round, Fronted has added another £1m to its coffers raised from a host of backers—many of whom are ex-Monzo employees.

Angel investors including Paul Rippon, Monzo’s former co-CEO, Gary Dolman, the digital bank’s first CFO, and Baroness Kingsmill, the former chair of the bank, participated in the round, which takes Fronted’s total funding to over £2m raised.

“We are delighted to get the backing of over 20 remarkable investors, to grow the business. This investment is the result of a year of huge effort from the whole team,” said Fronted co-founder Jamie Campbell.

“We will use the money to create greater access to Fronted; partnering with platforms that will offer Fronted as a deposit payment option.” 

Dolman, now a venture investor at Antler VC, has also joined Fronted’s advisory board as part of the investment.

“Fronted’s offering is highly differentiated and equally attractive to their customers and to me as an investor,” he said.

Other named investors in the round include Ville Vesterinen, co-founder of Slush, and Ling Lin, co-founder at Grip.

Fronted was founded in December 2019 and is on a mission to help renters by offering credit to spread the cost of apartment deposits which can often cost as much as several months’ rent.

“The alternatives in the market have shown that there is a market for deposit help, but we believe the insurance model doesn’t protect tenants and is prone to miss-selling. It is also expensive,” explained Campbell.

The ‘alternatives’ Campbell refers to are deposit insurance products, where the tenant buys an often annual, non-refundable insurance product that the landlord may accept instead of putting down a deposit.

Fronted’s alternative is essentially credit at a fixed interest rate of 12.5 per cent to help spread the deposit cost over the first year of tenancy, leaving them with an intact deposit lump sum at the end of the year.