UK neobank Monzo has increased its valuation to $5.9bn in an employee share sale. The fintech said on Friday that investors taking part in the deal include StepStone Group and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC, which participated in Monzo’s $610m fundraising earlier this year. The secondary deal will see equity-holding employees at the bank cash in on their stock holdings.
“It’s great to be able to provide employees with some liquidity, while meeting further investor demand for Monzo equity,” says CEO TS Anil in a statement. “It’s because of our employees’ commitment to our mission that we’ve grown to more than 10m customers, continue to launch game-changing products and consistently top the industry leaderboard for customer satisfaction for our personal and business accounts.”
Monzo has in total raised more than $1.9bn in primary funding from investors including CapitalG, Tencent and Passion Capital since it was founded in 2015.
It’s grown to become one of the UK’s largest neobanks with over 10m customers and £11.2bn in deposits. Starting as a basic current account product with a prepaid card, it’s expanded into stocks and shares, BNPL and is currently introducing a pension product. The neobank reported profitability for the first time this summer and announced plans to launch in the EU.
Secondaries ramping up
Monzo’s not the only fintech to raise capital through secondary funding recently. In August, Revolut secured a $45bn valuation in an employee share sale that involved investors such as Coatue, D1 Capital Partners and Tiger Global. UK based payments company SumUp is also said to be planning a share sale that would value it close to $9bn.
The new fundraising for Monzo comes as the neobank continues to prioritise growth ahead of an expected public listing. The fintech is in the process of setting up an Ireland office and recently moved a team of executives to the country to head up its division in the country. Last year, it also hired former CashApp head of product Conor Walsh to spearhead efforts in the US.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/monzo-valuation-employee-share-sale/
