Oval Money, the budget management app launched by the former CEO of Uber Italy, has raised £1.3 million in fresh funding, with 60% of the cash generated by individual investors on Crowdcube.
Founded by Benedetta Arese Lucini, former CEO of Uber Italy, with Claudio Bedino and Edoardo Benedetto, co-founders of do-it-yourself crowdfunding platform Starteed.com, and AI expert Simone Marzola, Oval Money came out of closed beta in April last year having raised €1.2M in funding.
For its latest round the company turned to Crowdcube, realising its initial goal of £500,00 within 72 hours. In total, more than 1000 individual investors participated in the crowd raise, with 35% of these already using the app.
The round was completed with investments from a number of high profile industry figures, including Fabio Cannavale, CEO of Lastminute.com and Mauro Del Rio, founder of Buongiorno, which is part of the Docomo Digital Group.
Earlier investors in the company include Italy’s Gruppo Intesa SanPaolo, b-ventures, an incubator from Japan’s Docomo Digital, and Bertoldi Group Family Office.
Users achieve savings using 'Steps' a set of commands that tell Oval to make a deposit to the app’s secure digital savings account each time there is new income or spending in a linked account.
The FCA-authorised firm sais it plans to use the new funds to help launch a feature within the platform that will allow people to invest their money in a multi-sided marketplace for savings and investments products.