Revolut Ltd and its online banking service
Revolut Ltd is a promising Russian-British startup that develops applications in the field of synthetics. Recently the company has completed another stage of financing as a result of which it has received investments in the amount of $500 million.
Thanks to this amount, the value of the startup has increased to $5.5 billion. For comparison, this figure is 3 times higher than the last estimate of Revolut in 2018, when after another round of funding was called the amount of 1.7 billion dollars. The new amount of investment has become one of the largest for the European segment of Fintech.
Startup provides a service for people who often travel on vacation or for work. It functions as an online bank, which is registered by phone number, after which the client draws up a virtual bank card, through which you can make online purchases. If the user wishes, he also receives a physical card. When the client is abroad, money is transferred to his virtual account and the service independently converts it into the desired foreign currency, checking the data and choosing the best rate. Interestingly, the Ukrainian startup Fintech Band, while creating its Monobank project, took the Revolut model as a basis.
Initially in 2015 Revolut offered its product on the Russian market, but did not find any prospects and options there. That is why the company was registered in London, as the British legislation is quite loyal to the banking segment in general and to the financial services in particular. At the time of market entry, Revolut offered a free application for prepaid cards. It was well received by users and quite quickly the customer base of the service included about 55 thousand people. At the same time, the company received its first investment of 1.5 million pounds.
Now the startup is back in Russia and its popularity is increasing with the number of users. Besides Russia, the service operates in 7 other countries, including Japan and the USA. The main office of Revolut is in London.
The startup was lucky to be the last to attract a large amount of investment due to the fact that British legislation decided to limit investments in the financial segment for some time. The reason for this is the uncertain economic situation due to Brexit.
The founder of the project is Nikolay Storonsky, who comes from Russia. He now owns a 30% stake in the company. According to the results of the last round of financing, the state of Storonsky is estimated at $500 million, and he is in the ranking of the 200 richest people in Russia, presented by the core magazine Forbes.
