Oval Money shapes up nicely with Intesa Sanpaolo backing
Financial details were not disclosed
Oval Money, the automated savings platform, has kicked off its Series A round with a “significant” investment led by Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo.
Financial details were not disclosed, but the bank will take a stake in Oval through Neva Finventures – the venture capital arm of Intesa SanPaolo.
In turn, Oval’s products will be offered to a network of over 20,000 tobacconists across Italy via Intesa Sanpaolo’s Banca 5, “reaching a so-far-unserved demographic of immigrants and young people”.
Banca 5, which already provides a physical banking experience through tobacconists, will now be able to offer consumers new, online services through Oval’s app.
Benedetta Arese Lucini, CEO of Oval Money (and former CEO of Uber Italy), says: “The interaction of a digital solution with a physical distribution also allows us to complete our mission of being a more accessible and inclusive solution.”
Oval works by automatically tracking spending by linking bank accounts and credit cards.
Users can programme automatic savings deposits to a personal and digital savings account. This account will collect the money, which can be “withdrawn at any time”.
Back in April, Oval raised €1.2 million in funding, backed by Intesa SanPaolo (again), b-ventures, an incubator from Japan’s Docomo Digital and Bertoldi Group Family Office.
Earlier this month, Intesa SanPaolo was one of 14 Italian banks that started testing a blockchain system with the support of ABI Lab, the technological laboratory supported by the Italian Banking Association (ABI).
