Revolut Plans New Venture Crowdfund, Switches Platforms

FinTech startup Revolut just announced new plans to crowdfund £4 million ($5.01 million) in a venture capital via the U.K.’s Seedrs crowdfunding platform at some point later in 2017. Seedrs is a direct competitor and rival to Revolut’s previous crowdfunding platform choice Crowdcube.

Founded in 2015, Revolut’s claim to startup fame is a prepaid card linked to a mobile app, allowing users to make payments, transfers and perform interbank-rate exchanges between 23 different currencies. To date, the FinTech startup has raised over $23 million in four venture funding rounds.

Revolut will reportedly use the crowdfunding round not only as a means to get some cash but also as a way to advertise its upcoming feature, Revolut Premium — a subscription service that allows users to make unlimited money transfers through the app for £6.99 per month.

“We know that we will do a crowdfunding, and we also want to promote premium,” Revolut founder and CEO Nikolay Storonsky told Business Insider. “So that’s why we’re telling people we will do crowdfunding for sure, but to guarantee yourself a spot, you need to get premium.” He went on to note that the round will most likely take place this summer and run consecutively alongside a Series B funding round for as much as £50 million ($62.6 million).

The Series B will likely go toward Revolut’s international expansion outside of Europe, Storonsky said. The company is eyeing markets in the U.S., Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong — presumably with proper licensing this time.

Earlier this year, Revolut launched a new payment-splitting feature. When users pay with their contactless RevolutCard, they can tap the in-app split bill button to select via their phone contacts with whom to split the bill.