FinTech startup Cleo secures $10m funding
Written by Hannah McGrath
21/09/2018
Cleo, a FinTech offering a money management app for Millennials, has landed $10 million in a Series A funding round.
The investment round was led by Balderton Capital, which backed Nutmeg and Revolut, and will form part of Cleo’s plans to launch their own range of financial products.
The startup, which launched in 2016, provides its users with financial data from a number of bank accounts in one place using artificial intelligence (AI) to help them budget and improve their financial health.
Cleo’s users are able to talk to a chatbot via Facebook Messenger and get personalised insights into their spending data.
The company says it has 600,000 users across the UK, US and Canada, 94 per cent of which are under 35, and is seeing accelerated growth in the US, with 30,000 new sign-ups per week.
Barney Hussey-Yeo, chief executive of Cleo, said the traditional range of financial products doesn’t work for Millennials, with solutions including overdraft fees and credit cards. “There’s an arms race going on to become the financial interface for this generation, a Google-size company will emerge in the next five years that achieves that.”
Rob Moffat, partner at Balderton Capital, explained: “In the future, people may not use a traditional bank account as their primary financial interface. Cleo has managed to strike the perfect balance between education and entertainment, bringing a unique personality that keeps users coming back.”
