Currensea, a fintech headquartered in London, has smashed its crowdfunding target by 135% in less than two hours after launching on the Seedrs platform by raising over £1 million (£1.35 million to be precise) from over 350 investors. This latest fundraising takes the total amount raised to £6.5 million.
It is currently continuing to accept investment from UK investors for a short time on the platform. There is a minimum investment of £11 and almost 50% of the initial investors are Currensea users.
The financing that Currensea has raised through this crowdfunding round will be used to support additional senior recruitment and to drive increased customer acquisitions. The fintech has an aim of acquiring 300,000 users in the next couple of years.
James Lynn, Co-Founder of Currensea, commented: “There has been phenomenal demand amongst investors, clearly demonstrating the scalability and need for a viable solution to the foreign exchange trap that we’ve all been forced to endure for too long. The fact that so many of our customers have now decided to become shareholders via Seedrs indicates how strong the proposition is – they love the simplicity of our money-saving solution and want to contribute to a fairer travel money market.”
Sustainability in fintech
Currensea was founded in 2018 by Barclays and JPMorgan alumni – Craig Goulding and James Lynn in London. Its mission is to make currency payments accessible, simple, and reduce the fees and charges from the high-street banks for everyone, through the use of our unique technology.
It offers the first Direct Debit Travel Card in the UK that links directly with users’ existing bank accounts. As the company’s debit card works with the banking account, there is no need to worry about inconvenient prepaid cards and different currency accounts.
Currensea uses open banking to securely connect to someone’s bank account with their approval, allowing travellers to make overseas transactions directly from funds in their current account, without needing to open any new account. It provides travellers with more control over how they spend their money while abroad without the foreign exchange charges normally applied by banks.
The fintech startup has enjoyed rapid growth this year with cardholder numbers growing by over 100% in 2022 and over 45,000 sign-ups.
In terms of sustainability, Currensea users can support the fintech’s sustainability initiatives by opting to plant one tree for every 8p saved or remove 100 plastic bottles from the ocean for every £1 saved in foreign exchange fees. Since launch, users have contributed to the planting of 50,000 trees and removed 750,000 bottles from the ocean.
