All-in-one card startup Curve raises $55 million
A startup that lets you use all your bank cards through one card has raised $55m (£44m).
London-based Curve said on Tuesday that it has been valued at $250m (£200m) in the funding round, which takes its total funding to date to $75m (£80m).
Curve lets people load their credit and debit cards on to an app and then use them all through one Curve card. Users select which card they want to use in the app and then the Curve card will work with that account. It currently supports MasterCard and Visa.
Shachar Bialick, the founder and CEO of Curve, said his company “provides customers with a better banking experience with no need to change their bank.”
“Curve is playing a completely different ball game,” he said in a statement. “It is not a challenger bank which means that we can focus on creating a radically better customer experience, without asking customers to trust their salaries with us, or the significant overhead of becoming a regulated bank.”
Curve doesn’t handle customer money but instead works as a “over the top” platform, telling users’ banks when to make payments and send money.
The company currently has 150 staff in London and Bristol, and is available in 31 European countries. It will use its fresh funding to launch in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain, and hopes to launch in the US by mid-2020.
Curve has around half a million customers and is “on track” to sign-up its millionth customer by the end of the year, the company said. Curve customers spend on average £1,500 per month through the app.
Michael Burns, a partner at Gauss Ventures which led the investment round, said in a statement: “The success of Curve, demonstrated by its outstanding growth, is a clear testament to the opportunity in re-bundling of financial products and services.”
As well as Gauss Ventures, Curve raised money from Creditease, IDC Ventures, and South African investment bank Investec.
“Receiving this level of investment from such prominent investors is a fantastic endorsement of the value and experience Curve brings to its customers,” Bialick said.
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Oscar Williams-Grut covers banking, fintech, and finance for Yahoo Finance UK. Follow him on Twitter at @OscarWGrut.
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