Bunq has reportedly agreed a €160m funding round at a €1.65bn valuation

Rounding off a bumper week of fintech news, challenger bank Bunq is said to have closed a funding round with an undisclosed British private equity firm.

The deal, first reported by Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad, is said to be for €160m at a €1.65bn price tag—a sizable jump from the group’s last €10m fundraise in 2018, which came solely from CEO Ali Niknam.

Earlier this year Bunq reached €1bn in user deposits, a doubling over the last year, and now operates in all EU countries plus the UK.

Niknam, who has long-hinted that the bank is working on an external funding round after pouring some €100m of his own fortune into the startup since 2014, declined to comment when asked by AltFi about the funding round.

According to Het Financieele Dagblad the funding round is pending regulatory approval as the Dutch financial regulator will need to greenlight the deal, which also reportedly involves Bunq acquiring an SME lender from the private equity firm’s portfolio.

There are many questions as to what this deal means for Bunq, a challenger bank that has never disclosed the size of its European customer base nor its revenue or profitability, and has been bootstrapped by Niknam.

Hopefully when the deal closes in the weeks ahead we’ll learn more about this mystery investor, the SME lender acquisition and what this all means for Bunq’s future.