Challenger bank N26 expands to Brazil
Germany-based mobile challenger bank N26 is powering on yet again as it has revealed its plans to expand to Brazil.
A neat tweet reveals a Brazilian treat
In a tweet today (27 February) and on stage at Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona, Maximilian Tayenthal, N26’s co-founder and CFO, made the announcement.
These are early days as it may have been a teaser to get the audience pumped up.
Anyway, this news follows on from last month, when N26 was talking about its delayed US launch again thanks to $300 million in a Series D funding round.
The round was led by Insight Venture Partners and took N26’s valuation to a mighty $2.7 billion. It also included participation from GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, and several existing investors.
N26 will use the proceeds for its US launch of its mobile banking product in the first half of this year.
As reported in March 2018, the bank closed a €110 million Series C funding round as it sought to consolidate its presence in Europe and expand to the US.
At that time, N26 said its launch in the US was expected in June 2018 with over eight people employed in its NYC office.
According to N26, the $300 million funding represented the largest private equity financing round for a fintech company in Europe in recent years.
To date, it has raised more than $500 million from investors including Tencent, Allianz X, Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, Li Ka-Shing’s Horizons Ventures, Earlybird Venture Capital, Redalpine Ventures and Greyhound Capital.
To its credit, it is doing well and staying vocal. N26’s ambition is to build the “first global mobile bank”. Currently operating in 24 markets across Europe, it says it has more than tripled its customer base in the last 12 months to more than 2.3 million customers.
Back in October 2018, it entered the UK market with its beta launch. It had been planning the move since November 2017.
N26 is also on our recently created Spanish challenger bank list.
