Investors who backed money transfer startup Revolut during a crowdfunding round two years ago have now realised returns of 19x on their original investments, according to data from Crowdcube.
Revolut originally raised £1.01m via Crowdcube in July 2016, only a year after the company was founded, and at the same time as Balderton Capital and Index Ventures made investments. At that point the company was valued at approximately £42m.
In April this year, Revolut received a $250m investment led by DST Global, setting a valuation for the company of £1.2 billion, making it one of the first crowdfunded unicorns. At the same time, crowd investors were offered the opportunity to sell their shares back to Revolut, realising a handsome return on their original investment.
Over the years, Revolut has moved further into traditional banking territory through a series of smart incremental add-ons to its product portfolio. In the last few months alone, the company has added features that allow customers to instantly buy and sell cryptocurrencies as well as a savings app for rounding up spare change from daily transactions.
Revolut now processes $1.8 billion through the platform each month and claims to be signing up between 6,000 and 8,000 new customers every day. With nearly two million customers in total, the firm has set an ambitious target of reaching 100 million customers in the next five years.
Revolut is the second business to join the ranks of Crowdcube’s ‘Unicorn Club’ of companies valued over $1bn, after craft beer outfit BrewDog achieved similar status in April 2017.