The London-based fintech startup Plum is today announcing the first close of €12 million, which is part of an anticipated €20.7 million Series A funding round. The new funding will be used to supercharge the company’s expansion, and cement Plum as Europe’s ultimate money management app.
The round is led by new investors like dmg ventures and Ventura Capital, and has been joined by previous Plum backers like Global Brain, VentureFriends, 500 Startups, and several angel investors.
Plum was founded in 2016 with a mission to banish financial instability and make everyone better off over their lifetime. The Plum app acts like a brain by automating the parts of personal finance that people find difficult or don’t have time for.
The young company is also planning to give customers a chance to buy into the Plum mission, with a new crowdfunding round opening on Crowdcube this month. Plum has seen record-breaking interest in the campaign so far, with more than 20,000 people registering interest in the round in the first 12 hours of the campaign launching. When the Series A closes, Plum expects total funding to date to have topped €37.3 million and its valuation to have tripled since the company’s last funding round in July 2020.
This new funding comes after a period of steep growth for Plum, as savers and investors across Europe look to fintechs to help them grow their wealth in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company has seen connected customer numbers double in the past year, with more than 1 million people across Europe now saving and investing with Plum. According to Plum, the young company has already saved more than $1 billion for customers since its inception and was recently ranked the most popular choice during the pandemic out of 10 investment apps.
Revenue has also increased notably in the past year, with growth of +189% year-on-year as more customers streamline their finances by subscribing to Plum’s premium tiers. Important subscription features launched in 2021 include the Money Maximiser, an automated budgeting tool which streams spending money while maximising on interest, and Plum’s first smart pension product, a SIPP that sets money aside continuously for retirement.
Further European expansion is at the heart of Plum’s plans following this round. The company, which has EU bases in Athens and Nicosia, is expected to soon receive regulatory approval to offer investments in the EU, which will allow Plum to give customers in France, Spain and Ireland access to its US stocks product when it goes live later in the year. Plum is already available for 26.6% of the EU population (119 million people), and plans to cover 70.6% by the end of 2022 (316 million people) with launches in the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Finland, Austria and Germany.
Product development in 2022 will be focused on getting people investing smartly with Plum. The startup is planning to do this by offering more assets, building on its forthcoming stocks launch with EU and UK stocks, as well as crypto as an asset class by mid-2022. Access to these new asset classes will continue to have automation at the heart, as ultimately all investment products will sit together in the Splitter within the Plum app, where customers can easily and continuously invest across their portfolio. A Plum card is also on the horizon later this year to help customers automate their spending alongside their investments.
Victor Trokoudes, CEO & co-founder of Plum, stated: “Wealth for all is our mission and we’ve made some great strides towards making that reality this year, expanding our user base massively and delivering a product that looks more-and-more like a financial super app. But there’s a lot more work to be done. The appetite for smart and intuitive investment products is enormous, particularly in other parts of Europe where often old-fashioned banks are the only option for growing your money. With the help of this new investment and our upcoming crowdfund, our app will become the natural choice for anyone in Europe looking to improve their finances for the long-term.”
via https://www.AiUpNow.com
October 15, 2021 at 04:27AM by contact@bcurdy.com, Khareem Sudlow
