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Revolut has allowed some of its early investors to cash out at least $300mn as part of a share sale backed by wealthy Goldman Sachs clients, following a similar transaction that mainly enabled employees to sell the UK fintech’s stock.
Early investors in Revolut sold between $300mn and $500mn worth of shares, according to three people familiar with the matter. The transaction maintained Revolut’s valuation at $45bn.
About $100mn worth of shares were sold to Goldman Sachs’ growth equity unit on behalf of private wealth clients, two people briefed on the situation said.
Revolut’s leadership has ties to the US bank, with former Goldman Sachs executive Michael Sherwood sitting on the fintech’s board. Revolut and Goldman Sachs declined to comment.
The sale of existing Revolut shares marked a rare opportunity for the fintech’s early investors to make a return after its prospects were boosted when it secured a long-delayed UK banking licence from regulators in July.
Early investors in Revolut include venture funds Index Ventures, Balderton and Seedcamp.
The latest transaction follows a share sale in August involving $500mn worth of Revolut stock previously held mainly by employees that was sold to investors including Coatue, D1 Capital Partners and Tiger Global.
That sale also valued the fintech at $45bn. It means up to $1bn worth of Revolut shares have been sold in recent months.
Revolut had decided to sell more of its existing shares because of high demand in the previous transaction, a person close to the company said.
Abu Dhabi sovereign investor Mubadala was one of those that took a stake in Revolut for the first time when employees sold shares, the Financial Times has previously reported.
Revolut, which was founded by chief executive Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko in 2015, is using its long sought-after UK banking licence to double down on an aggressive global expansion strategy.
The company’s licence application with UK regulators was delayed for about three years as it ran into issues including a qualified audit of its 2021 accounts and a tussle with investor SoftBank over Revolut’s share ownership structure.
Revolut secured the UK banking licence with restrictions, meaning it still needs to meet certain requirements to exit a so-called mobilisation stage and operate as a bank.
The company has made internal plans to exit this stage in less than a year, which is the amount of time that it typically takes, a person close to Revolut said.
Resolving its issues with regulators in the summer had made it possible for Revolut to subsequently obtain another licence for trading activities that would allow it to offer investments in UK and EU stocks to its customers in Britain, the person added.
Revolut this week announced it had more than 50mn customers globally, of which about a fifth are in the UK.
However, many of its customers do not use Revolut’s digital app as their primary bank account.
A major goal for the company is growing its share of customer deposits in order to fund lending and grow its balance sheet.
Storonsky and Yatsenko on Friday said that Revolut planned to launch mortgages in Lithuania, Ireland and France in 2025.
Storonsky on Tuesday told attendees at Slush, a European tech conference in Helsinki, that Revolut had its eyes on securing a US banking licence and would aim to offer credit cards to customers.