Mondo is looking to turn prospective customers into investors by ring-fencing £1 million of a £6 million financing round at crowdfunding site Crowdcube.
The mobile-first challenger bank says £5 million has already been committed by Passion Capital, which previously invested £2 million in the company in its first round of financing last year.
The startup says the new funding will enable Mondo to kick-off its public launch, slated for Q4, with new hires and an accelerated roll-out of its services.
Currently awaiting regulatory approval for its UK banking licence, Mondo has registered 30,000 prospective customers on its waiting list and begun testing its services with 1500 users.
Tom Blomfield, CEO of Mondo says: “Early on, we decided that openness and transparency was the only way to ensure that Mondo was solving real customer problems. Our early users have helped us shape the bank as it’s grown and we’re enormously grateful for their help. Now we want to give them a chance to own part of the bank that they’ve helped to build.”
Blomfield says the new funding round, which values the startup at £30 million, was massively oversubscribed, with the bank turning away VCs from across the world.
The investment will open to the public through Crowdcube on Tuesday 1 March. Along with owning shares in the bank, investors will get an exclusive “Mondo Investor” Mastercard Prepaid Debit card and access to the bank's iPhone app, skipping the 30,000 strong waiting list.
Mondo will join a raft of challenger banks and established players at Finextra's NextGen event in Canary Wharf on 3 March to debate the disruptive forces reshaping the banking sector.