The world of traditional banking has remained silent. In July, the London neobank Revolut, created in 2015 to allow its users to transfer money and pay in foreign currencies free of charge, completed a fundraising of 800 million dollars (707 million euros) from Japanese SoftBank, the most powerful high-tech fund on the planet, and US investment firm Tiger Global Management. This has earned the start-up, which has in the meantime obtained a banking license in Lithuania, to be now valued at 33 billion dollars. That is well beyond the 25 billion euros of Société Générale.
Launched in a race forward, Revolut has continued to plant flags in new countries, claims 16 million customers worldwide, but is still not profitable. In 2020, she lost 168 million pounds (199 million euros). Having raised so much money has helped to raise a little music of skepticism around Revolut in the world of French fintech (finance start-ups). “Revolut is a“ leaning forward ”model [c’est-à-dire qu’il peut tomber] “, believes Cyril Bertrand, managing partner of the French venture capital fund XAnge, investor in the payment application between individuals Lydia or in Ledger (safes for crypto-assets).
“Everyone is well aware that the risk is very high, and must therefore behave well in the boat to arrive safely, he continues. It’s tense and ambitious, as Amazon could have been. “ A few months later, in October, another fintech, the Berlin-based N26, in turn announced a fundraising of 900 million dollars, valuing the company at more than 9 billion dollars, more or less the equivalent of Commerzbank, the second largest German banking group.
Unicorn status in sight
In France, it is the neobank for small and medium-sized enterprises Qonto which should very soon announce a “megaround” which would value fintech at more than 4 billion dollars. The information, published by the daily The echoes, November 8, has not yet been confirmed, but Alexandre Prot, the boss and co-founder of the company, says well “Hope to pass the status of” unicorn ” [le club des jeunes sociétés valorisées à plus de 1 milliard de dollars] until the next round “.
Payment applications, online credit platform, neobanks or neo-insurers, the new French finance players have managed to raise nearly 2.3 billion euros in 2021
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