The United Kingdom based digital banking app Revolut was valued at around $33 billion during a new funding round led by Softbank’s Vision Fund and Tiger Global Management in which the company managed to raise about $800 million.

The result of the increased valuation form the fundraising is that Revolut is now the most valuable fintech firm in Britain. Currently the market value of the company is slightly more than the market capitalisation of mainstream lender NatWest, at least on paper.

An investment round in early 2020 had valued the London based Revolut at just $5.5 billion and according to reports in June quoting information from sources, the company was targeting to get a valuation of about $20 billion at that point in time.

In recent years, the global financial technology sector has seen companies increasingly getting such stellar valuations. For example, the market value of the payments company Wise during its public listing last week was at $11 billion which made it the biggest ever listing for any tech company in London.

Revolut was founded by former Credit Suisse trader Nik Storonsky and developer Vladyslav Yatsenko in 2015 and it has managed to so far win over more than 16 million customers. It offers a range of financial products that include foreign exchange, stock trading and crypto currencies, which is alleged to have undercut prices of mainstream banks.

However the company has been unable to translate its rapid growth into profitability and the company’s annual losses doubled during its last financial quarter because of investments in risk controls.

In recent years, Revolut has sped its pace of expanding globally and has entered a number of new markets including in the United States, Australia and Japan.

The company’s Chief Financial Officer Mikko Salovaara told reporters that product development and increased marketing activities in countries that Revolut is currently expanding into, particularly the US and India, will be funded by the money that the company raised from its latest funding round.

He said that the timetable for any potential listing of Revolut would not be affected by the fundraising.

“We think eventually we will be a public company but have no immediate plans to list,” he said.

Britain’s finance minister Rishi Sunak also endorsed by the investment round of the company by saying that he wants to grow the fintech industry of the country so that the financial sector of the company remains competitive after the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

“We want to see even more great British Fintech success stories like Revolut,” he said.

(Adapted from Latestly.com)