Fintech start-up Monese scores $60 million funding round, PayPal among investors

Monese, the London and Tallin-based startup targeting expats and immigrants who typically struggle to get a traditional bank account, has secured a $60 million Series B funding round, with participation from PayPal among other investors.

Launched in 2015, Monese has raised a total of $76 million in funding and currently claims 600,000 users across the UK and Europe, moving more than $2.5 billion each year through Monese accounts. Company says that the number of new monthly customers has been tripling since the end of 2017.

„As in the UK, adoption rate has exceeded our expectations. Now, Europe is embracing the Monese product even faster than the UK market. We see this as a vindication of our original mission statement – and a validation of our approach in addressing the inefficiencies and limitations inherent to the current banking system.”, according to the press release.

The company uses proprietary technology to conduct background KYC checks in real-time, enabling customers to open an account in less than two minutes, a big bonus for recent migrants and those with a slim credit profile who don’t have a full financial history and would otherwise struggle to open a traditional bank account. Monese says that fully 75% of its customers currently use the service as their primary salary account, underscoring the stickiness of the mobile-only platform.

The company, which currently employs 140 staff, plans to use the new funding to hire an additional 100 employees across its existing UK and Estonian offices as well as open a third new office in Portugal by the end of the year, significantly increasing the size of its operations.