Revolut, Monzo and Tide alum line up for crypto startup Cheq’s $2m pre-seed

Cheq, a new fintech making crypto payments more accessible to a mass audience through the use of stablecoins, has raised $2m in its pre-seed round. 

The company, founded less than six months ago by former co-founder and CTO of Portify Chris Butcher in December 2021, raised the cash from Connect Ventures, Semantic Ventures and firstminute Capital.

Additional funds included former leadership from Monzo,Revolut and Tide who were among 30 angel investors. 

Cheq is aiming to be the primary option for taking payment with stablecoins that are pegged to the US dollar. 

By using stablecoins, users avoid costly bank transfer fees, according to adherents, as well as allowing customers to protect their wealth from fluctuations and hyperinflation that may be present in some traditional fiat currencies.

Butcher says he was inspired after another crypto venture Token Alerts found success in Latin America. Consumers in the region are turning to stablecoins as a way of protecting their wealth against hyperinflation, according to Butcher, while traditional payment infrastructures can be less effective. However, existing crypto payment solutions do not deliver a user experience that is accessible to the mass market.

Cheq users connect an existing crypto wallet to the platform and instantly “access a user interface similar to a modern neobank”, the company said in a media release. It supports payments on the Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain or Polygon chains.

It also creates payment links that can be embedded on a website or shared on social media so customers can pay with crypto in a single click.