US mobile-centric financial services provider Moven has raised $8 million in a series a funding round led by SBT Ventures.
Sberbank-owned SBT was joined in the round by Route 66 Ventures, Standard Bank and Anthemis Group, which led Moven's $2.4 million seed funding effort in 2012.
Pitching itself as a mobile, branchless alternative to traditional lenders, Moven is not actually a bank, instead working with partners that have charters and FDIC insurance while it provides the front-end.
After around a year in beta, it opened up to the public in March and, founder Brett King recently told Wired, now claims around 10,000 active customers.
In a blog post, King says that the new money will help Moven build on this modest number as it taps the "hundreds of thousands of prospects and emails built over the last few months".
The funding will also help the firm move beyond the US, with deals in the pipeline that will see it enter the Canadian and New Zealand markets through licensing arrangements, he tells Wired.