Mobile-only bank Atom has closed a £50m fundraising round. The round saw money injected from financial security investment company Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), hedge fund Toscafund and Woodford Patient Capital Trust as well as funds advised by Perscitus.
The challenger bank has stated that the money will be used to grow the company and to boost the company’s technology.
Bridget Rosewell, chairman at Atom, said, “This latest raise recognizes the enormous progress that we have made on our journey to disrupt UK banking and is a clear signal of our investors’ support for our future plans.”
The new capital will be used to fund further growth and to continue the bank’s investment in technology. For instance, Atom is currently undertaking the process of re-platforming the bank into the cloud and preparing to launch new products using Thought Machine’s world-leading smart contract core banking technology.
Moreover, Mark Mullen, CEO at Atom, stated the bank is going to use the money to grow its current talent base. It plans to grow its number of employees by 50 people in 2019. That way, the company hopes to improve and expand Atom’s products and services. “More than ever we are convinced of the importance of Atom’s role to drive positive change in UK banking,” Mullen added.
This is not the first time that BBVA has invested money into Atom. In March 2018, the financial security investment company joined Atom’s £149m round and the Spanish had also contributed £83m to its 2017 raise.
Atom was launched in 2016. Since then the digital-only bank has seen grown to welcome up to £20m of business and £10m of residential mortgage applications each week.
Copyright © FinTech Global 2019
