Curve Captures $55M In New Funding

Referred to as an “over-the-top” digital banking platform, London-based Curve has cleared $55 million in its latest funding round. Curve’s claim to fame in financial services is allowing customers to consolidate their many cards into a single Curve card and app. The theory is that centralization will allow consumers better control over their spending.

Gauss Ventures, the London-HQ’d FinTech investor, led the round, with participation from Creditease, IDC Ventures and previous backer Outward VC (formerly Investec’s INVC fund). A number of other early investors, including Santander InnoVentures, Breega, Seedcamp and Speedinvest were also involved. The new infusion of funds brings Curve’s total valuation to $250 million, according to reports, and will be used for developing additional features for the platform and expanding its European reach. Curve is not currently online in the U.S. — but the firm does have plans for a stateside launch in 2020.

As of mid 2019 Curve claims 500,000 users, and it’s targeting 1 million by the end of the year.

“We [have] identified a few countries where the organic pull is fantastic, and we are about to double down on them,” Curve founder and CEO Shachar Bialick noted in an interview.

Curve’s main pull is that it isn’t asking customers to abandon their bank accounts, as other digital challenge banks tend to do, instead focusing on being a platform that runs “over-the-top” of existing banking and payments infrastructure.

“For Curve to succeed in its mission of bringing banking to the cloud, we need [to continue] to build the product; tiny experiences that together create a whole new offering,” Bialick continues. “Our money is everywhere, and the job of connecting it all together to one seamless experience requires many resources, and especially many talented people. The latest Series B will enable Curve to re-bundle more of your money: experiences such as Curve Send (peer-to-peer payments), and Curve Credit (post-transaction installments for any payment, anywhere).”

Curve, apart from consolidation, allows users to lock a Curve card at the tap of a button, no FX fees and the ability to go back and change a payment source after a transaction, if the need arises.