Loot, the digital banking service used by over 50,000 people, has secured an additional 拢2.2 million in seed funding, taking the聽total figure raised so far聽to 拢3.7 million.
This round raised 拢2.2 million led by Power Corporation’s corporate VC, Portag3 and Speedinvest.
Loot is aimed at millennials – or the young at heart – who increasingly run their lives from their smartphone.
Ollie Purdue, the 24-year-old founder of Loot, created the company in 2014 in his final days at university after struggling with money management apps and clunky聽banking interfaces when studying.
December 2016 saw the launch of their full current account, designed to replace your bank, and had all the tools built-in to help manage money.
The latest investment will be used to help implement the mid-term plan to make Loot fully automatic, whilst looking to see how they can integrate the best social features into the platform. ?
Steph Choo, managing partner at Power, said: “We鈥檙e really excited to be supporting Loot as they continue to develop both their brand and new features.
鈥淟oot has already had a huge impact on their target market, which consists predominantly of students and young professionals – we鈥檙e looking forward to Loot鈥檚 expansion over the next year and beyond.鈥�
Purdue said: 鈥淲e want our users to know more about their spending, so they can do more with their money.
鈥淭his means letting them know how much they can spend freely (and safely), so that they can save and pay their bills.
鈥淟oot鈥檚 goal is to work out the best way to manage our users鈥� money, so users can focus on what they’re really interested in.
鈥淩ight now we can replace a traditional bank account and help our users manage their money and track their spending through our app.鈥�
The new funding will also be used to take on the competition.
鈥淚 guess there are two types of competition for us at Loot – the banks and the money management apps,鈥� said Purdue.
鈥淭he banks have significant market share, but struggle with helping people understand their money, and, in my opinion, they also struggle with tech and branding.
鈥淭he new聽FinTech banks are much better at this, but none of us are at scale yet.
“Money management apps approach the user problems at a different angle but as they don鈥檛 own the accounts, it’s hard to be proactive for the user as you can鈥檛 help them move their money.
鈥淎lso, with a money management app you are still stuck with having to choose a bank! At Loot, we are trying to merge the two so we can be the only financial account you need.鈥�