Lanistar, a personal financial management startup founded in 2019, has raised £15 million to support its forthcoming commercial launch in Winter 2020.
The investment, from family members of founder Gurhan Kiziloz, gives the VC a 10% stake in the company at a valuation of £150 million.
Lanistar plans to use the fresh capital to grow its operational and customer support teams, and scale towards its product launch. The Hammersmith-based company employs 45 full time staff, and has plans to grow a 150-person support team in Greece. It has also recently announced partnerships with organisations such as Mastercard and Jumio.
Having already secured £2 million in seed money, Lanistar is creating a new debit card that links to up to eight bank cards to help customers better manage their finances via new technology and open banking.
Gurhan Kiziloz, founder and CEO of Lanistar, says: “For far too long, the customer has been an afterthought in the minds of the banks. Rather than being seen as a valued client, whose views are treated with the utmost respect, the modern customer has been seen as nothing more than a statistic on a balance sheet.We’re here to change that, and this investment will help us to do that, and brings us closer to my ambition of building a £1 billion fintech company.”