Chip, the automatic saving app offering access to market-leading returns, raised a total of £10.7 million from the crowd and the government-backed Future Fund, as part of the company’s series A round.
The amount, raised in under 48 hours from 6,420 investors, makes it the largest convertible round in UK crowdfunding history as well as the largest crowdfunded Future Fund participation. Chip, which saw 25,000 people pre-register ahead of the round on Crowdcube, raised a total of £2 million in under 10 minutes and £4 million in under an hour.
2020 has been a year of record growth for the company, with the year’s targets exceeded already. Prior to closing its biggest investment round to date, the company had;
• Grown to nearly 280,000 registered users
• Processed over £165 million in savings
• Increased deposits by 110%
• Achieved full FCA authorisation
• Launched FSCS-eligible interest accounts with market-leading returns
• Tripled the size of the team
• Validated a revenue model
This investment will be used to fuel Chip’s growth, continue ongoing discussions with VCs from a position of strength and build on the revenue models. From a product perspective, the funding will enable Chip to improve the infrastructure and capacity to give access to more deposits, launch their premium account, ChipX, and evolve to investment funds, ISAs and LISAs and, ultimately, pensions.
Chip’s Chief Executive Officer, Simon Rabin, commented: “This round means big things for Chip. The growth we’ve seen this year has been incredible, but it’s time to take the business to the next level. Right now we are presented with a huge opportunity to capture a slice of Europe’s €30 trillion savings market that’s ripe for disruption, and Chip is poised ready to accelerate and dominate this space as a market-defining savings and wealth management app.”
“In conjunction with the Future Fund, the UK government’s initiative backing tech start-ups, we’ve been able to welcome thousands more savers into our investor community and become the largest crowdfunded Future Fund round in the country. However, perhaps the only downside to the overwhelming demand we saw with this round is that we have run out of allocation before the entire 25,000+ who requested access were able to participate. We want to give as many people as possible the opportunity to own a part of Chip and are therefore working on finding a way to allow for more capacity, so make sure you watch this space.”