Challenger bank bunq will received €193m in funding from its first external investor Pollen Street Capital following regulatory approval.
As part of the deal, bunq has also made its first acquisition of Irish lender Capitalflow.
bunq said it will use the injection of funds to fuel its growth across Europe, particularly in Germany and France. This follows its introduction this year of German, French and Spanish IBANs and the opening of new offices in Cologne and Paris. The challenger bank also plans to double the number of bunq staff by the end of 2022.
Earlier this year, the Dutch neobank raised $228m in a Series A funding round led by Pollen Street Capital. A round it touted as the largest Series A for a European FinTech.
Bunq offers bank accounts and debit cards that you can control from a mobile app. Customers can start an activity with their friends. It creates a shared pot that helps users share expenses with everyone.
Ali Niknam, CEO and founder of bunq, explained that when bunq was founded nearly ten years ago it was fully self-funded, confident in the belief that if it built great products people love to use, they will pay to use them.
“Being the only completely self-funded challenger bank that branched into 30 European markets without a penny of VC funds, we retained the freedom and independence to build a business model that aligned our commercial reality with the happiness of our users.”
Niknam went on to explain that its total user deposits doubled in 2019, then again in 2020 and now sits at above €1bn.
“So while this is a new beginning for bunq, it’s also an exciting opportunity to continue the mission we started nearly a decade ago. We still truly believe that a healthy society is best served by a diverse banking sector. That’s why we built a fully mobile bank that puts its users first in everything it does.”
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