Augmentum’s fintech fund invests £5.3m in Monese
ZOPA backer Augmentum Fintech has made a £5.3m investment in mobile-only current account provider Monese.
The London-listed fintech investment fund is participating in a £46m series B fundraising alongside Swedish investment firm Kinnevik, online payments firm PayPal and loyalty points currency firm Avios, all of whom are investing in Monese for the first time.
Monese launched in September 2015 as the first mobile-only current account provider in the UK. The money raised will be used for product development and international expansion, which will include opening a new office in Portugal to develop its business in Southern Europe.
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“We look for firms that can disrupt and take market share, and not only is Monese able to do that, it is also able to move fast,” said Tim Levene, chief executive of Augmentum Fintech.
“Launched only four years ago it is already active in 20 countries which demonstrates the demand for its product from the increasingly mobile European workforce. We believe that this is a market which will continue to grow.”
Augmentum Fintech was launched by Augmentum Capital, a venture capital (VC) firm backed by Lord Rothschild’s RIT Capital Partners.
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The VC firm already had a 7.4 per cent holding in peer-to-peer giant Zopa worth £18.5m that has been transferred into the investment company portfolio.
In August, Augmentum Fintech made a £7m investment across three companies: small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) challenger bank Tide, supplier payment firm Previse and company information platform DueDil.