Cino, a Tallinn-based payment app designed to streamline shared expenses, has secured €3.5M in seed funding, led by Balderton Capital, with additional support from Connect Ventures and angel investors like Barney Hussey-Yeo, the founder of Cleo. The app allows users to split bills in real-time, charging each person directly from their bank account at checkout, eliminating the need for reimbursements or payment tracking. Cino, which is bank-agnostic, is designed to meet the needs of Gen Z, who prefer seamless and immediate payment solutions. The funds will help Cino expand its user base in the UK and across Europe, while also exploring additional features and markets such as B2B payments and rent.
Launched in 2023 by CEO Elena Churilova and COO Lina Saleh, Cino is led by product and design experts — Elena, who brings experience from Bumble and Booking.com, and Lina, with a background in Human-Centred Design from Cornell University. Cino is the first solution that lets people truly pay together – charging everyone their share in real time, directly from their bank account at the point of checkout.
It’s been built for the way Gen Z expects to pay with friends and family – instantly and effortlessly together without financial awkwardness – and is designed to be as social as the experiences it enables. As a generation that thrives on connection, Gen Z needs their financial tools to be dynamic, adaptable and integrated. Cino finally meets that need, providing a bank-agnostic solution that works across the EU, and soon the UK.
By reimagining shared payments from the ground up with Gen Z’s needs at its core, Cino makes spending together as seamless as paying alone. It doesn’t just get rid of the need for reimbursements and difficult conversations; it stops them ever happening.
Users securely connect their card to the Cino app, get a virtual card, and can join shared payment groups where they set adjustable custom split ratios. Any group member can pay for anything, wherever Visa is accepted, and everyone’s share is automatically deducted at checkout. Importantly, Cino is bank-agnostic; people no longer need to use the same bank to make shared payments, or share bank details. All payments appear in the group feed for full transparency and users can join or leave payment groups anytime.
In this way, Cino takes the hassle out of shared payments – no follow-ups, no tracking, no payment links, no sharing bank details, no wallets, no pre-loaded funds.
Cino is solving a generational shift in sharing and settling costs, that arises from new priorities and realities. Gen Z has been raised on digital wallets and banking apps, but the awkwardness of splitting costs remains. Living in shared houses for longer, splitting utilities and grocery bills, younger people also need to work hard to balance budgets in an unpredictable economy. Even within close relationships, joint bank accounts are becoming less common.
Elena Churilova, co-founder and CEO of Cino said: “Fintech has always been one-dimensional but we are social creatures. Our payments should reflect how we actually spend money – together. Back in the cash days, it was simpler. Now that we’ve gone digital, payments need to evolve to keep up.
Existing bill-splitting apps, built over a decade ago, were designed to manage debt. Their process – deciding what to input, how to split it, and when to request repayment – creates angst and negative sentiment around shared expenses. This is a significant problem, as evidenced by the fact that over half of us have ended a friendship, and a third of Gen Z couples have split, over money disputes.
Cino’s popularity is soaring as users share the app across social networks and by referring their friends. It’s seen 100% month-on-month growth in Finland and Italy and groups use Cino, on average, 17 times a month, spending up to €3,000. Active users typically make their first transaction within just hours of signing up and the company has a growing waitlist ahead of its UK launch later this year.
With this latest funding, Cino will expand further across Europe, launching new shared payment features and exploring new verticals including B2B payments and rent.
Greta Anderson at Balderton Capital said: “For too long, people have accepted standard bill-splitting, debt tracking, and repayment requests as the only way to manage shared expenses – simply because there was no alternative. Cino’s viral growth demonstrates that there is an alternative which users love. We’re excited to support Elena and Lina as they redefine how money moves between people and groups.”
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Read the orginal article: https://arcticstartup.com/cino-raises-e3-5m-seed/
