Atom bank, the UK’s challenger bank built exclusively for mobile, has raised £50 million in a fundraising round with participation from BBVA, Toscafund, Woodford Patient Capital Trust and funds advised by Perscitus LLP. Today's round takes the fintech startup's total funding to £450 million and will be used to accelerate further growth and to continue the bank’s investment in technology.
Though currently making a loss, Bridget Rosewell, chairman at Atom believes the bank continues on its path as a fast-growing challenger in the UK’s lending markets: “This latest raise recognises the enormous progress that we have made on our journey to disrupt UK banking”.
Atom says it is currently welcoming up to £20 million of business and £10 million of residential mortgage applications each week. The bank estimates its total lending, for homeowners and small businesses, has grown by 76 percent in the past year to £2.4 billion, supported by growth in deposits from £1.4 billion to £1.8 billion.
The capital from this round will go mainly towards re-platforming the bank into the cloud and preparing the launch of new products using Thought Machine’s smart contract core banking technology. Thought Machine's Vault product comes with a full suite of retail banking products that are implemented via a system of smart contracts and has cryptographic ledgers for watertight security. On top of that, the bank is also working with Newcastle University to develop a blockchain-based system for mortgage applications.
Mark Mullen, Chief Executive Officer at Atom also has plans regarding growing the bank’s team in the North East. He said that Atom "will add 50 new roles this year to help us expand the range of products and services we offer, starting with Instant Access savings in the autumn".
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