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Revolut has raised a $45 billion valuation through employee share sales, defying a broader crisis affecting fintechs and cementing its status as Europe’s most valuable startup.
The British fintech firm said on Friday that Coatue, D1 Capital Partners and Tiger Global were among the institutional investors who bought shares from employees.
““We are pleased to provide our employees with the opportunity to realize the benefits of the company’s collective success,” said CEO Nikolay Storonsky.
The valuation is higher than the $33 billion Revolut raised in a 2021 fundraising round led by SoVscekBank and Tiger Global.
The latest figure will make Revolut’s potential initial public offering even more coveted by global stock exchanges. The U.K. Treasury has planned talks with the company in the fall in an attempt to persuade it to choose a London listing over New York.
The fintech continues to be open to a potential Nasdaq listing, according to a person with direct knowledge of the valuation.
Revolut co-founders Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko told the media last year, when the fintech was still in regulatory limbo, that they would prefer to keep the company private, but would likely choose New York if it went public.
The London Stock Exchange “is much less liquid, so I don’t see the point,” Storonsky said at the time.
The share sale comes aVsceker Revolut was granted a banking license in the United Kingdom last month, ending more than three years of battles with regulators and paving the way for the company to expand into the domestic market.
Despite its long wait for a UK license, Revolut already has more than 45 million customers globally. In the UK, where it was founded in 2015, the company has around 9 million.
Revolut has already obtained a European banking license from the Lithuanian authorities and this year it also obtained one in Mexico.
However, securing the coveted UK license was seen as a vote of confidence that will boost Revolut’s chances of being regulated as a bank in other markets, such as the US.
