Bank of London retains $1.1bn value with new investment #

Bank of London, the fintech clearing bank that only received its banking licence last month, said today that it has received an additional $40 million in cash as it prepares to go live.

In a funding round led by Mangrove Capital Partners and 14W Venture Capital, the London-based clearing bank said it has kept its “unicorn” value of $1.1 billion. It is only the second bank of its kind to open in the UK in 250 years.

The Bank of London is the sixth major clearing bank in the UK, providing payment and transaction settlement services to other financial institutions. Businesses that aren’t allowed to offer banking services will be able to do so through the company. They won’t have to go through the long and difficult process of getting a banking licence.

The latest investment comes after a $90 million Series C deal in the fourth quarter of 2021 gave the company a value of $1 billion.

The firm’s fixed value comes at a time when raising funds in the fintech sector has been particularly difficult, and several high-profile startups have experienced significant declines in their value. Globally, shareholders are turning away from companies that are losing money in favour of those that can show a faster path to profitability.

Although the Bank of London is “pre-revenue” and has not yet started making money, it has nevertheless received a round of fundraising. CEO Anthony Watson recently said that the company is getting ready to grow because its banking licence no longer has limits on how much money it can move.

Alex Zubillaga, head of the Bank of London 14W investment fund, called the new clearing lender “by far the most disruptive fintech in London”.

He says that there is a high demand for a wholesale clearing and transaction bank that is easy for developers to use and is built on modern application programming interfaces (APIs), user-friendly software, and patented innovations because the fintech industry “simply can’t keep up with consumer trends and the need for technological innovation”.