Digital bank Revolut has reportedly secured a $45 billion valuation in a share sale by company workers, beating an overall fintech industry downturn and solidifying its position as Europe’s most valuable startup venture. This, as the UK government aims to convince it to pursue a listing in London instead of New York.
As reported by the FT, the UK-headquartered Fintech revealed on Friday (August 16) that Coatue, D1 Capital Partners as well as Tiger Global were listed among the institutional investors that had acquired shares from Revolut employees.
CEO Nikolay Storonsky remarked:
“We’re delighted to provide the opportunity to our employees to realize the benefits of the company’s collective success,”
The valuation is considerably more than the $33 billion Revolut managed to attain back in a 2021 investment round that had been led by SoftBank as well as Tiger Global. This latest valuation makes Revolut the UK’s second-most valuable banking business — right behind HSBC and notably surpassing Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and even NatWest.
This update has been announced following Revolut finally obtaining a banking license and could potentially make Revolut’s IPO more appealing to stock exchanges.
The UK Treasury has reportedly scheduled discussions with the Fintech later this year in order to convince it to select London over New York for its upcoming listing.
According to sources familiar with the matter and cited by the FT, Revolut is focused on listing via the Nasdaq.
The present valuation also cements the Fintech firm’s leading position among European technology startups, even surpassing that of major competitors such as Checkout.com and Klarna, both of which experienced a tech rout recently.
Meanwhile, global Fintech Klarna’s valuation declined from about $46 billion to lower than $7 billion in a 2022 funding round. And Checkout slashed its internal valuation to just $11 billion the exact same year, after having obtained a $40 billion valuation from its backers.
But the latest valuation is still considerably less than that of US growth firms in the industry such as Stripe, which had most recently been valued at a substantial $65 billion, as well as US-listed Latin American virtual bank Nubank, which has a market cap north of $65 billion.
Revolut co-founders Storonsky as well as Vlad Yatsenko informed reporters this past year, when the company had been caught up in a regulatory issue, that they wanted to keep the firm in private management, however, in the case of a flotation they may prefer New York.
The London stock exchange is not as liquid so “I just don’t see the point”, Storonsky previously explained.
Notably, the latest share sale now values Storonsky’s personal share in the firm at around $8 billion. This, according to a recent FT review of public documents from this past August. Chair Martin Gilbert’s holding may be valued at over $850,000.
As widely reported, Revolut obtained a UK banking license this past month, ending over 3 years of talks with regulatory authorities and paving the way forward for the firm to expand in its home market.
At present, Revolut claims over 45 million customers internationally which includes about 9 million in the United Kingdom, where it was established back in 2015.
Revolut also holds a European banking license from relevant agencies based in Lithuania and was issued a license in Mexico as well.
Revolut has been focused on its global business expansion strategy plans and its customer numbers are far more than UK’s Monzo and Starling bank.
Revolut recently reported a pre-tax profit of £438 million for 2023, up from £25 million in losses the past financial year. Revolut’s revenues have now nearly doubled to £1.8 billion.
Workers who had been employed by Revolut for a year or more and are not on gardening leave had qualified to sell off 20% of their vested share options at a $865.42 share price during the sale, the FT had revealed earlier.
But this time, ex- workers had not been able to exercise this option.