London-based fintech Chip raises £7.3 million through angel and crowdfunding

Chip, the London-based fintech that created an automatic savings account, has raised £7.3 million, with £3.8 million crowdfunded by customers and the remainder from unnamed angel investors. The campaign ran for three weeks in September and is currently Crowdcube’s most participated-in crowdfund, with 7,182 investors. The startup provides a free app “to make saving as easy as spending.” The AI-driven system calculates how much a user could save, gives the option to decline it, and then automatically transfers the amount to user’s Chip account. Chip has saved over £85 million for its users to date. CEO Simon Rabin commented: “The most powerful way for Chip to grow is to have thousands of investors advocating for the product they believe in. It’s amazing to have this many Chip savers as investors in the company. We’ve proven there’s a big demand for Chip, and we’re ready to scale - we’re going to use our investment to grow and deliver a product that will fill a huge gap in the market. Many of the other big names in fintech are focussed on making spending easier. Monzo have the current account, Curve are disrupting credit cards, Revolut have the travel card, but Chip… Chip is for saving.” The fintech will use the funds to increase the app’s capacity for large volumes of users, refining the infrastructure and expanding the team. THe plan is also to expand the product to offer access to FSCS protected accounts and deliver an in-app marketplace for returns products. Already the company has made a number of senior hires, all fintech veterans: David Kavanagh (CTO), former CTO of Purplebricks; Sharon Miles (COO), former innovation director of B2B fintech unicorn Deposit Solutions, as well as Barclays and LeasePlan; Gerard Hurley (CCO), former compliance lead at Funding Circle and an ex-FCA regulator; Gary Dolman (Board Advisor), co-founder and recently retired CFO of Monzo. New CTO David Kavanagh said: “The savings market is archaic, broken and ineffective. People want more from their savings accounts, so they are voting with their capital. Chip has raised VC-levels of funding from its users and supporters, demonstrating that what customers want is a market-changing product that is easy to use, helps them save, and offers the best possible rates in the market. It’s an incredibly exciting time for the company and I’m delighted to have joined it as such a pivotal stage. I look forward to working with the team at Chip to help set a new standard for savings apps.”