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Abu Dhabi sovereign investor Mubadala has taken a stake in Revolut for the first time, participating in a share sale that last month secured the London-based fintech a $45bn valuation and netted at least $200mn for its founder and chief executive Nik Storonsky.
The Middle Eastern fund was among investors such as Coatue, D1 Capital Partners and Tiger Global that took part in the sale of $500mn of shares by Revolut employees in August, according to three people with knowledge of the transaction. The size of Mubadala’s investment could not immediately be ascertained.
Storonsky, who co-founded the bank in 2015, sold between $200mn and $300mn worth of his shares in the sale, according to a person familiar with the deal. The estimated value of the stake sold by Storonsky in August was first reported by Sky News.
The stake sold by Storonsky represented about half of the total worth of the deal, in which thousands of employees sold about $500mn of their shares, the person added. His proceeds could benefit Storonsky’s effort to build up venture capital fund QuantumLight, which he established two years ago.
The investment company headed by chief executive Ilya Kondrashov aims to identify the next generation of tech winners with “AI-driven investing”, build a proprietary system to track “the entire universe of venture-backed companies since the ‘90s” and identify “robust and stable success patterns”, according to its website.
Before he reduced his stake through the share sale, Storonsky’s holding in Revolut would have been worth almost $8bn at a $45bn valuation, according to a Financial Times analysis of corporate filings.
Mubadala’s investment comes as the sovereign fund steps up its efforts to deploy capital in Europe, its most active region for venture deals after North America, according to data provider PitchBook. The investor took part in at least 28 European deals over the past five years, accounting for more than a fifth of its transactions globally.
It has also invested in the Swedish fintech Klarna but had not previously backed Revolut.
The sale of a stake to Mubadala also comes as Revolut pursues an aggressive global expansion plan.
The fintech received a long-anticipated UK banking licence in July, which it hopes will allow it to secure further regulatory approvals in key markets including the US. Revolut’s application was delayed by issues including a warning from its auditor that the bulk of its 2021 revenues “may be materially misstated” before the issue was resolved.
Revolut already has more than 45mn customers globally, including roughly 9mn in the UK. It has an EU banking licence from authorities in Lithuania and was granted one in Mexico this year. The company swung to pre-tax profit of £438mn in 2023, from a £25mn loss in 2022.
Japanese investor SoftBank, which participated in Revolut’s previous fundraising, did not take part in the latest sale after it was forced to give up its priority class of shares as Revolut sought to satisfy regulators in its quest for a UK banking licence.