Financial services firm BBVA has led an £83m ($102m) funding round for UK-based mobile banking service Atom Bank that valued it at $320m, TechCrunch reported on Friday.
Fund manager Woodford Investment Management and hedge fund sponsor Toscafund Asset Management also took part in the round together with undisclosed additional investors.
Atom launched its digital banking platform in April 2016 after about two years of preparation. It offers customers a fixed saver account and has branched out into mortgages and business loans.
Atom chairman Anthony Thomson had told Business Insider last month that the company had expected to close a £100m round in the near future. The funding will support the introduction of more offerings to Atom’s app over the course of 2017.
BBVA said on Friday that it invested approximately $36m in Atom as part of the round and maintained its 29.5% stake in the startup as well as its two board seats.
The Spain-based bank had also led Atom’s last funding, a $124m round in late 2015 also backed by Woodford Investment Management, Toscafund Asset Management, Marathon and Polar Capital.
Javier Rodríguez Soler, BBVA’s global head of strategy and M&A, said: “Atom has a lot of promise, with tremendous opportunities for growth. It allows BBVA to further its transformation and maintain its commitment to the British market.”
Thomson added: “We are very satisfied with the confidence that our main shareholders are placing in us by participating in this capital increase. We will keep growing, rolling out new products and developments of our app and offering a whole new way of banking on our mission to change banking permanently for the better.
“The activity in the UK market will continue to gather heat in 2017 and we are confident we have a firm foundation to keep making headway.”