As someone who rarely uses Monzo, here’s my take on how it looks.
Down round
The down round is really devastating to me. N26 raised during Covid, and didn’t face a down round. I know it was an extension of an existing round, but why couldn’t Monzo have done the same then?. It leads me to think there was clearly reasons to take a HUGE chunk off the company valuation. I know it has been largely confirmed this is not the case, but Tom stepping down right before a huge down round is suspicious. Basic logic would have people think this is a stipulation of the round.
Revolut raise a massive 500 million. That’s nearly 50% of Monzo’s new company valuation. With Revoluts new amazing UI, it leads me to think their forecast and constant product release is highly appealing and suggest a really positive future. I don’t know when Monzo last released a feature that their competitors don’t already have a better version of. It’s been so so long and that’s concerning. Monzo feel far behind and stagnant for nearly a year now.
It would be one thing if Monzo was progressing like Revolut and N26, but it seems like the company has been stagnating and a bit more lifeless since these people cashed in. I am sure if they hadn’t cashed in, they would work a bit harder to ensure a successful IPO
Company House
I am not saying this happened, but there are a lot of positive reasons behind these not being on Company House. One of the main reasons that hasn’t been discussed here is other staff. Imagine £33+ million pounds of stock were cashed in. You might have wanted to get in on that. Rather than each person getting several million, what if each member of staff could cash in 50k or 100k worth of stock. What if each founder cashed in one million each - that’s a lot left over for other people. It really feels like a few people making sure they’re set up for life and consciously making a decision not to let other staff cash in. There was clearly room for lots and lots of other members of staff, even lots of staff who have been there longer than three years who’ve sacrificed so much as well. I would feel let down and ready to move on after all the loyalty I pledged and that being the response.
If Monzo had failed and that wasn’t flagged to company house, everyone would have thought we’re in it together. Now that they cashed out, it doesn’t really matter if Crowdfunding investors don’t see a return. These people are set for life.