Starling Bank has raised £75 million to fund its international expansion plans.
The UK challenger raised £60 million in a Series C funding round led by Guernsey-based Merian Global Investors, and a further £15 million from its sole existing investor, Harald McPike of Bahamas-based QuantRes.
The new round lands a week after Starling took the wraps off a new Euro Account as it begins preparations for life after Brexit. The timing of that announcement coincided with a flying trip by Starling founder Anne Boden to Ireland, which will provide the launch base for a passported European assault.
Since launching its app in May 2017, Starling has built up a customer base of 460,000 personal current accounts and 30,000 SME accounts. The bank expects to hit one million customers by the end of 2019.
With 20 partners already connected to its third party marketplace, Starling has also announced today the arrival of Telleroo, PelicanPay and Vitesse, providers of business to business (B2B) payments for corporates and other institutions, to its platform.
Says Boden: “Building our platform and launching in the UK to provide genuine choice to retail, SME and Banking-as-a-Service customers was just the first step. Our ambition is to use our technology to build a next-generation global, digital banking platform, starting with our launch across Europe this year."