Internet and telecommunications group Softbank’s Vision Fund 2 led a £220m ($304m) funding round for UK-based digital bank operator Zopa today valuing it at just over $1bn according to the Financial Times.
The round also featured asset manager Chimera Capital and existing backers including investment firm IAG Capital Partners’ Silverstripe fund and venture capital firms Northzone and Augmentum Fintech.
Founded as a peer-to-peer lending platform, Zopa is the operator of a neobank which offers savings accounts, a credit card and personal and automotive loans. It said in a blog post announcing the round it is lining up additional products for release.
Jaidev Janardana, chief executive of Zopa, told the FT the funding would allow it to be more flexible in terms of planning its initial public offering, adding that the earliest date it is considering is late 2022.
The company reportedly raised $12m from investors including Benchmark in 2004, adding $15m from Benchmark, fellow existing investor Wellington Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) in 2006 and $5m from the Rowland Family and private investor Tim Draper the same year.
BVP, Benchmark and Wellington Partners supplied another $12.9m for Zopa in 2007 before it secured a ‘multimillion-pound’ amount (£1m = $1.55m at contemporary rates) in a 2012 round led by Augmentum and backed by BVP, Wellington and Forward Venture Partners.
Arrowgrass Capital Partners led a $25m round for the company in 2014 that took its total funding to over $81m according to TechCrunch. It then joined Benchmark, Wellington, BVP and Augmentum Capital in a $100m round led by financial services firm JPMorgan Chase in 2016.
Zola received $41.2m in a 2017 round co-led by Wadhawan Global Capital and Northzone, closing $78.4m from undisclosed investors the following year and $181m in funding from IAG Silverstripe in December 2019.
Augmentum, IAG Silverstripe and Alternative Credit Investments reportedly invested a further $27m in the company in May this year but it is unclear whether that constituted an earlier tranche of the latest round.
