Draper Esprit puts $16.5m into Revolut's Series C round

High growth digital technology business investor Draper Esprit announced a commitment of up to $16.5m in London-based fintech company Revolut on Thursday.

The AIM-traded firm said its investment in Revolut was part of their latest Series C funding round, which saw Revolut valued at $1.7bn, taking total funds raised to $340m since launch in 2015.

It said the round was led by Hong Kong-based DST Global.

Revolut - one of the fastest-growing tech companies in Europe - was founded in 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky and employed more than 350 people, providing alternative digital banking services directly to customers.

It reportedly functions like a digital bank, allowing users to transfer money across different currencies without transaction fees.

The business had more than 250,000 daily active users, and is targeting 100 million customers in the next five years.

In the last few months, it launched features that allowed customers to instantly buy and sell cryptocurrencies as well as a savings feature that let customers round up their daily transactions and save their spare change in a digital ‘vault’.

“Revolut is a fantastic business which we have got to know both directly and through our relationship with Seedcamp,” said Draper Esprit CEO Simon Cook.

“We have been tracking their progress within the digital banking ecosystem for a while.”

Cook said Revolut’s status as one of the fastest growing tech companies in Europe was “testament to the great work” that Storonsky and his team had undertaken in recent years.

“App-only digital banks like Revolut are changing the way we bank and we are tremendously excited about working with the business given its enormous potential to completely revolutionise the way we borrow, save, pay and invest.”