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The challenger bank Monzo, yes the hot (pink) ‘coral’ card you’ve seen everywhere, has raised £113 million, doubling its value to £2 billion.This fresh pot of funds has been raised after Monzo announced plans to launch in the US. Some may see this as a sign of increased capital needs to support expansion plans. However, Monzo is no stranger to raising funds.

What is most interesting is that outside of traditional venture capital raises, Monzo has turned its award-winning public appeal into a successful crowdfunding stream. In 2016, Monzo launched its first crowdfunding campaign with a target of £1 million, which it raised in just over 1 minute. In 2017, the target of £2.5 million was blown out of the water with the final total reaching £12 million.

The latest crowdfunding raise in December 2018, reached the £20 million mark and set a new fintech crowdfunding record.It is apparent that Monzo has no trouble raising money and as Tristan Thomas, head of marketing at Monzo says “it’s always better to raise money when you don’t need it versus when you need something within a month”. What will be interesting to see is how many more and how frequent these raises, crowdfunds or otherwise, will be.

Digital bank Monzo doubles valuation to over £2bn in 8 months

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