Last month, UK neobank Monzo made headlines when it raised $430m, in a round led by Google parent company Alphabet’s venture arm CapitalG.
While its valuation sits at $5bn, up from $4.5bn at its last round, the increase represents its post-money price, meaning the valuation takes into account the newly injected capital — and the company’s price per share remained the same at £14.41.
The fresh round from a new investor like Alphabet still felt like a big moment for the company, which hit profitability for the first two months of 2023. And, as expectations rise that the neobank will continue to be in the black this year, we decided to work out how many employees have been made millionaires by Monzo’s rise, as we’ve done with rival Revolut in the past.
At least 15 former and current staff at the company own shares in Monzo worth more than £1m according to Sifted’s analysis of Companies House records filed in January.
For now, these fortunes only exist on paper. There’s no telling when and how the neobank will exit — and if it does it’s facing a challenging market for fintech IPOs.
Who’s set to cash out big
Among the big winners are six people with shares worth more than £10m — most of whom cofounded the neobank. Founding CEO Tom Blomfield holds shares worth over £100m — the most among its five founders.
Those early to the Monzo game also lucked out, especially those who joined close to its founding in 2015. Seven of the fifteen paper millionaires are early employees across early iterations of its engineering, operations and product departments.
Current members of its C-suite such as chief risk officer Iain Laing also hold shares over the million pound mark.
Monzo declined to comment on Sifted’s findings and chose not to confirm individual holdings.
Paper millionaires
Monzo’s public records (filed January 31st this year) also only show individuals who have already exercised their options into real shares.
It may be a while until we see the true picture of Monzo’s employee millionaires. The neobank started by issuing share options with 10-year exercise periods after leaving, Sifted previously reported.
While all employees are granted option awards when they join the neobank, according to its most recent financial result 24,270,082 shares remain unvested.
That means that notable past and present key players at the bank who likely hold large — and of as-of-yet unexercised equity packages — are likely waiting in the wings as future Monzo millionaires.
Up rounds and down rounds
The number of Monzo’s known paper millionaires might seem small compared to its fintech competitors Klarna and Revolut — which at one point had valuations that would have put over 70 employees from each company into the category.
But that was at the height of the sector’s funding fever pitch in 2021 and both have faced dramatic drops in valuation since. Klarna’s millionaires were minted when its valuation was an eye-watering $45.6bn, making it Europe’s most valuable startup. A down round in 2022 saw its valuation plummet by 85% to $6.7bn, meaning that the number of paper millionaires will also have gone down.
Revolut has yet to raise primary funding since its $800m megaround at a $33bn valuation in July 2021, but recent internal valuations from investors Molten Ventures and Schroders were lower than that figure (40% and 22% lower respectively).
Industry watchers predict that this could be Monzo’s last private funding round before an IPO — an exit that would result in a large transfer of wealth that would be a boon to the European fintech scene. Successful and cash-rich alumni would likely breed a new generation of founders and help Monzo fortify its position as a “founder factory”.
The neobank will, however, likely face an uphill battle to achieve its IPO ambitions. Along with the prospect of a valuation shave at public listing, Monzo doesn’t have a publicly traded neobank precedent to follow in Europe.
While 2021 saw fellow neobanks SoFi and NuBank go public in the US, the window for listings has narrowed since. An IPO would also be unprecedented for the European fintech scene, which has yet to witness a neobank float on any stock exchange.
