UK-based FinTech that aims to assist consumers with borrowing ilumoni raised £1.2m in an oversubscribed seed round.
As part of the deal, new investor James Eden and existing investor Simon Moran have joined the board as non-executive directors. The round, which attracted an additional 20 angel investors to the project, comes after it introduced the beta version of its app earlier this year.
The startup will use the funding to market the product by launching it on the App Store and Google Play by later this year.
The funding comes after the AI-driven FinTech raised £455,000 in pre-seed funding following which received full FCA authorisation in January this year.
Founded in 2019, the free-to-use app assists consumers in managing how they borrow funds. ilumoni aims to offer personal insights into how people borrow and pay back money, with complete visibility of what they might owe, including how long it could take to make repayments and how much their borrowing will end up costing them in interest. These features are combined with prompts and future scenarios that consumers can engage with to determine repayment amounts or alternative products that might cost less in terms of interest.
The funding comes at a time when 42% of people report some form of negative change in their financial circumstances – more so after Covid-19, it said.
Commenting on the funding, Eden said, “While there are many emerging tools that champion consumers’ financial degrees of freedom, there aren’t any that provide an independent view of borrowing and debt, despite the impact it can have on people’s financial and mental wellbeing.
“The purpose behind ilumoni, level of innovation and credentials of the team were more than enough to convince me this was an investment worth making.”
Ilumoni CEO Gary Wigglesworth, added, “Let’s face it, for most of us, calculating the cost of your borrowing and making sure you pay back optimally on the best deals is neither easy nor a fun way to spend your time. And we now expect young adults to emerge from school with financial literacy skills, yet they have no frame of reference. We want to change that and give people the tools to help them manage their borrowing so that they can spend time on the things they want to do, knowing their borrowing is under control.”
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