Digital challenger bank Monzo is reportedly close to landing a roughly $50m (£39.3m) funding round with a Singaporean sovereign wealth fund, just weeks after securing a near-£4bn valuation.
Monzo is in advanced talks to sell an additional stake to Singapore’s Government Investment Corporation (GIC), with unnamed City sources saying an announcement could be made in the coming weeks, according to Sky News.
The bank has grown rapidly since it was founded in 2015 to become one of the UK’s most successful start-ups. It boasts more than nine million UK customers – the seventh highest of any British bank – and added two million of these last year alone.
The bank announced earlier this month that it had secured a new $430m (£339m) funding round led by Alphabet-owned CapitalG, boosting its valuation to $5bn (£3.9bn).
The firm was previously valued at $4.5bn (£3.5bn) in 2021 after a funding deal with investors including Tencent and the Abu Dhabi Growth Fund.
An insider told Sky that the deal with CapitalG had helped to attract interest from GIC.
GIC is one of the world’s biggest state-backed investment funds and, if successful, would join a string of other big-name investors in Monzo, including Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent, Passion Capital, Accel and General Catalyst.
Monzo declined to comment when approached by City A.M. GIC could not be reached for comment
After hitting monthly profitability for the first time last year, Monzo expects to post its first annual profit in 2024.
It reported a £116m loss in the year to the end of February 2023, driven by higher loan loss impairments from its buy-now pay-later offering.
News of the potential funding top-up comes amid expectations that Monzo will eventually launch a blockbuster public listing in London or New York.
Chief executive TS Anil has hinted that the firm will list at some point, but has been tight-lipped about the timing or location, saying earlier this month that it was “too early” to discuss.