I don’t see a route to IPO anytime soon, when you see Klarna and Stubhub putting the break on their listings, then it’s not happening soon
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I signed up to sifted mailing list and they send me emails now and again, no payment required.
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TS is a speaker at the next London StrictlyVC:
£138 a ticket 
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Anyone else a bit disappointed in this? 
Valuation seems low, you’d have hoped could have grown more in recent years but obviously the underlying business doesn’t support if these headlines are true - annual report soon should be an interesting read.
Also given what we’ve just seen with Deliveroo, doesn’t make sense to list in the UK. Maybe they have given up on being a monster company as clearly they can’t crack the US.
I think this is pricing it low too. But IPOs tend to underprice as a starting point - it allows for hype, more demand and a good first day ‘pop’.
Ultimately, I do think London is the best place for Monzo to list. Revolut and Robinhood will be the big fintech winners in the western world and so makes sense for them to be listed in the US. I love Monzo but their product development is too slow to grow beyond being a regional player (UK and Europe hopefully). The Monzo US story isn’t realistic and I don’t think will work - but it’s a narrative they’ll need to keep up pre-IPO!
I think Monzo can be a £15-20bn company in the next few years if they succeed in breaking into Europe but they will not become a £50bn+ company in the medium term.
That’s a 33% increase since last year, when it was valued at 4.5bn. That’s very decent growth, more than I’d have expected frankly.
I think if you are hoping for 100% growth a year or something at this stage, it’s not happening. If we get 20% YOY that’s good going. Unless it were to take off in the US big time or something
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It does say “
“An IPO, including any new capital raised, would be likely to value Monzo at more than £6bn, and potentially in the region of £7bn, according to banking sources”
So I guess my £2000 investment in Dec 2018 could be worth approximately £10,000 not quite in the Revolut league
Not compared to Revolut.
Monzo spent a long time trash talking Revolut and they have left Monzo in the dust. It just looks like Monzo have given up and won’t fulfil the potential.
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Did they? Genuine question.
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The Annual Report will indeed be very interesting read.
They must be very pleased with it internally now & are feeding IPO talk into the market to be closely followed by good/great annual report.
I still find it a bit hard to believe that an IPO will take place Q1/Q2 ‘26. Klarna’s listing has been delayed due to uncertainty & I assume these things are hard to get going again once they slow down
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You can read it now Monzo – Annual Report 2024
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There were times Blomfield, Nic and the N26 guy were doing panels with each other and there were plenty of little digs at Nic/Revolut and in those early Fintech days.
Revolut have basically copied every single one of Monzo’s features, but expanded much more aggressively (and yes at the cost of ‘culture’). You can argue Monzo were caught on the back foot during Covid when their funding was dropped/as was US license, but they’ve have plenty of cash for ages now and clearly aren’t pursuing growth to the same degree. The lack of a concerted push into the US is worrying for their ability to ever be the big company they could have been.
TS was on a podcast recently talking about how they were taking a different approach; pursuing a ‘deeper’ relationship with the customer. Clearly it’s not paying off if that’s the sort of valuation being touted at this late stage.
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Why do a vanity valuation to make people feel a bit better about themselves? It’s pointless, and Revoult have gone for a completely different model and operate all over Europe as well.
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You are definitely right revolut has completely outstripped Monzo. I would say that the biggest differentiator is that Revolut focussed on Europe, and it’s cracking that market, whereas Monzo sort of dithered in the UK and also tried to concentrate on the US, where it never took off.
Monzo’s biggest risk, and the one that holds down its valuation at this point, is that it permanently stalls at being a UK only bank with a minor international footprint.
Revolut is now established in several European countries and has huge expansion potential.
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Completely agree. Revolut also bet big on crypto which has paid off handsomely for them.
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Who said anything about feeling bad about ourselves…?
We’re comparing business strategies and outcomes, not feelings.
I think the point was more aimed at whoever came up with that frankly ridiculous valuation in the article.
The most pointless thing about valuations like this is the comedic circularity of them all.
Gets a high valuation>excites shareholders>pushes IPO value further>get a higher valuation and round we go again until they (insert startup here) do IPO and invariably crash out of the market.
On a wholly separate note not surprising about the US Market, very tricky to break into that and provide the true localisation/complexity of that market v others before Trump, likely near impossible now.
Exiting the US should’ve happened years back with a wider focus on Europe and Asian markets. I suspect they’ve missed that boat now which makes that number even more ridiculous.
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There’s a non Brexit counter factual, where the UK banking license allowed expansion into Ireland and other parts of Europe earlier. Instead of the world of having to get a license in Ireland, and building the business again to a different regulatory model.
Revolut have had that joy in reverse, but that Lithuanian license has worked out well for them, and they’ve been able in the UK to be freer as an EMI.
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Not really. They have just had a hellish time getting a real banking license. They still don’t have one and they have been trying for literally years so it wasn’t a case of them choosing to not get a license to keep them freer, they wanted the license but couldn’t get it and we don’t have much idea why they keep on not getting it.
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I thought the UK banking license was arriving later this year?
At that point, I’ll be assessing our financial requirements to see what fits best. The Revolut offerings are compelling enough as they stand now. With a UK banking license, the final jigsaw piece to deliver peace-of-mind security will be in place.
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