- Revolut overtakes its money transfers competitor TransferWise with new valuation
- Platinum and secondary cards features announced
Digital money transfers upstart Revolut is going from strength to strength, with a new valuation of its worth surging from USD $400m just last year to a mighty USD $1.7bn now.
The company has also unveiled plans to launch a new metal debit card allowing its customers to claim 1% cashback in cryptocurrencies.
In December, Revolut launched new cryptocurrency services for its users, enabling them to buy, sell or trade established digital currencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ether. Four months later and after the addition of Bitcoin and alternative digital currencies (“altcoins”), its valuation has more than quadrupled.
The fintech innovator has seen a major increase in its client base, which now totals 1.8 million (and climbing). It also boasts around 250,000 daily users.
Back in the summer of last year, reports began circulating that Revolut was nearing the completion of a funding round of USD $70m led by VC firms such as Ribbit Capital and London VC Index Ventures, prompting its CEO Nikolay Storonsky to state: “We are on track to break-even by November as we continue to optimize our costs and infrastructure, and add further lines of revenue to the product.”
Significantly, Revolut also successfully raised USD $250m from a cluster of firms, including Russian-owned VC company DST Global, taking its total funds raised to date to $340m.
Despite claims that it broke even in December, Storonsky seems resolute that the firm’s chief focus at present is on growth, not profitability. The additional funds will be put to use in expanding the company into new regions, including Australia, the United States, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore. Revolut will be increasing its 800-strong workforce in the coming months too, with a special emphasis on appointing more engineers and designers.
With a valuation of USD $1.6bn, its chief competitor, TransferWise, has been a dominating force within the European fintech space. Both firms allow clients to make super-fast money transfers at minimal cost. But for the first time, Revolut has exceeded the valuation of its closest competitor by USD $100m.
The new Platinum cards feature is yet more evidence of its restless dynamism. To be available within the next three months, the card not only lets users get 1% cryptocurrency cashback but provides them with a concierge service, too.
Hinting at another new development, Storonsky said: “We’re launching secondary cards, which are effectively a product that allows parents to give a card to their kids and then watch their spending and do some parental controls, for example they can’t withdraw from an ATM, they can’t spend on drinking etc.”
It seems, though, that the new valuation is attributable not only to Revolut’s tireless innovation but to the rise in the number of institutional investors who are climbing aboard the cryptocurrency train.
Earlier this year, Nasdaq announced that it would launch its own Bitcoin futures trading. CEO Adena Friedman said that it would “consider becoming a cryptocurrency exchange over time”.
Last month, she told CNBC: “I believe that digital currencies will continue to persist. It’s just a matter of how long it will take for that space to mature. Once you look at it and say, ‘do we want to provide a regulated market for this?’ certainly Nasdaq would consider it.”
The market certainly seems to be maturing in Revolut’s favour.
