Everything you need to know about UK’s new $33 billion fintech unicorn
With the help of a fundraising initiative by SoftBank and Tiger Global Management, Revolut is now valued at $33 billion. The London-based digital banking startup has officially been labeled as the UK’s most valuable private fintech unicorn.
The fundraiser raised $800 million, which will be used to develop new products and stretch out its operations in international markets such as the United States and India.
Founded in 2015, the fintech company enjoys more than 16 million users. Revolut actively provides its customers across 35 countries with currency exchange, cryptocurrency services, wealth management and investing services.
According to the BBC, the six-year-old fintech unicorn is now worth six times more than it was initially valued at last year. The skyrocketing revenues and funds helped Revolut beat NatWest, one of the UK’s Big Four retail banks.
During the initial stages of the tech enterprise, Revolut founder and CEO Nikolay Storonsky focused on breaking through the cryptocurrency market, which experts say was the main factor of Revolut’s success.
In a statement made on Thursday, Storonsky emphasized the company’s enthusiasm in obtaining this large investment, mentioning that as Revolut expands into new markets “we are encouraged by our customers’ enthusiasm for Revolut.”
Karol Niewiadomski, senior investor for SoftBank, expressed that Revolut’s “rate of innovation has redefined the role of financial services, placing it at the forefront of Europe’s nascent neo banking sector.”
According to a report from London & Partners in collaboration with Dealroom, a data provider on international startups and companies, London currently holds 29 tech startups that are valued at more than one billion dollars.
In the first six months of 2021, the UK’s capital ranked second for having the highest number of venture capital investments in fintech, following San Fransisco.
It is important to note that a traditional bank would have never been able to reach the same valuation as Revolut in only six years, according to professor of Business Economics at Oxford University, Nir Vulkan. Fintech companies are rapidly growing, causing a disruption within the traditional means of banking.
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