INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The round is led by United States venture capital firm General Catalyst and Accel
Existing backers Passion Capital, Goodwater, Thrive Capital, Orange Digital Ventures and Stripe also participated.The latest funding was at
fintech unicorn club, joining recent entrant Revolut.Meanwhile, the bank upstart is also planning to launch a large crowdfunding round later
and other armchair investors.In a brief call earlier today with Monzo co-founder and CEO Tom Blomfield, he told me the new funding will be
primarily used for increasing headcount to further develop the Monzo product line and to cover other operational costs now that the
of servicing their current account, which is undoubtedly evidence of how much progress Monzo has made over the last year
very small in percentage terms) and interchange fees (the money Monzo makes any time you spend on your Monzo debit card).Another revenue
stream is the nascent Monzo marketplace, which he says will be the next focus going forward now that the Monzo current account, with the
on in its existence, holding four very popular hackathons and conducting a few early partnership pilots, but has since mostly stalled on the
roll out of marketplace banking and other partnership integrations, sometimes to the frustration of the wider U.K
partner products inside of the Monzo banking app, but that gaining a banking license and building out all of the features of the current
account had to be the short-term priority
Now that heavy lifting is complete and armed with new operational capital, it is marketplace game on.To that end, the Monzo CEO says
headcount over the next year could double again, from around 450 now to 900
And in terms of customer growth, extrapolating stats from a recent Nationwide annual report (PDF link), the challenger bank says it now
accounts for 15 percent of all new bank accounts opened each month in the U.K
bulk of customer acquisition, even if Monzo recently began targeting 16 to 18-year-olds who would be opening their first-ever bank account
This means ensuring that its lending models are correct (i.e
avoiding too many defaults as it scales) and steadfastly growing the marketplace and third-party product partnerships that will bring in
additional revenue.I was also intrigued to see a United States venture capital firm once again back the U.K
are delivering a high-quality banking experience for consumers at scale that is sorely missing from the market
This has driven very high organic growth, strong retention and engagement, and unprecedented customer love for and trust in Monzo
Beyond this, Tom and the Monzo team have improved upon the traditional business model of banking, removing the traditional offline
retail-based banking model in favor of a highly scalable and lower cost mobile-only experience
All of this creates the potential for Monzo to become a leading U.K
bank, launch a successful financial marketplace, and eventually expand internationally.
