Banking platform Curve has spiced things up for its 7th round of funding with a crowdfunding campaign which has become one of the most successful in fintech history.
The startup, which allows customers to integrate multiple bank accounts into one smart card controlled by an app, reached the £6m mark in record time on the crowdfunding platform Crowdcube.
London-based Curve is following in the footsteps of Monzo, which raised £1m in 96 seconds in its first crowdfund in 2017 and a further £20m last year. Revolut raised £3.9m on Crowdcube in 2017.
Crowdfunding campaigns are often as much about creating a media buzz and building a loyal customer base than a desperate pitch for funds. Indeed, Curve does not particularly need the money. The company raised a $55m series B just last month at a $250m valuation and set a target of £1m from the latest crowdfund.
A record-breaking 9,500 pre-vetted Curve customers participated in the raise, buying as little as £10 worth of equity.
“There was a lot of continued interest from customers saying 'why haven’t you done a crowdfund yet?'..." Curve's head of strategic partnerships, Charlie Hammond, told Sifted, adding that the company had been thinking about a crowdfunding campaign since last year.
"There are a lot of brand evangelists, people living and breathing the product," he said. "The timing of the crowdfund [post the Series B] means we've limited the risk [to these retail investors]."
The average crowdfunding rate-of-return in the UK is ~9%, but Curve's newest investors will be hoping for a slice of the Monzo magic, whose earliest investors have seen the value of their shares rise by 6,300% (at least in paper terms).
Curve has seen respectable growth since launching its card early last year, having already reached half a million users and hoping to double that figure by year-end. By comparison, Monzo had 200,000 users in its first full twelve months of operation.
