Tide banks $14m in one of this year’s largest Series A fintech rounds so far

Tide, the digital-only banking app which launched in January, has closed $14m in a Series A funding round – thought to be one of the largest investments in a financial technology (fintech) company this year.

The deal, which follows an earlier $2m seed round pre-launch, was led by fintech investor Anthemis and  Spotify investor Creandum, alongside existing investors Passion Capital and LocalGlobe; the fund headed by Robin and Saul Klein.

Founded by George Bevis, former product director of Zopa and business strategy director at Barclaycard, Tide is a new UK business account app which recently featured in our ‘Just Started’ interview.

It is “designed to radically change how small businesses manage their finances” and save them time and money and is competing with the likes of Monzo and Atom Bank.

The app doesn’t have a full banking licence – instead Tide handles transactions with the money held by Barclays – and is free to download. It costs 20p per bank charge and £1 per cash withdrawal.

The seven month old start-up intends to use the funding to add more features to make online banking for small businesses more efficient and will also double its staff at its London office by the end of the year.

To coincide with the news, Tide has also revealed it has partnered with online lender iwoca to enable small firms to access loans of up to £100,000.

Speaking to Startups.co.uk earlier this year, Bevis said that his “ambition is to serve 50 million companies in 10 years’ time.

“In five years’ I hope we’ll be a long way down that path – and a large international business as a result – while still maintaining our focus on the needs of smaller businesses.”