Social bank Kroo has raised £17.7 million in a Series A funding round led by tech entrepreneur and founder of Karlani Capital, Rudy Karsan.
The capital raised will be used to mobilise the bank ahead of its launch in early 2022.
Kroo’s goal as a social bank is to remove friction from financial interactions with friends and family.
It offers customers a prepaid debit card and innovative ways to track their personal and social finances – enabling them to easily create groups with friends, track spending and split and pay bills quickly and securely.
It says that fostering social good is at the heart of its vision, with a board-level social conscience committee ensuring that it actively advances social good; the company has pledged to donate a percentage of profits to social causes.
A tree-planting referral scheme has already been launched, so that every time a customer successfully refers a friend, Kroo plants 20 trees with the aim of creating a forest of 1 million trees.
Kroo is currently in the process of securing a full banking license. CEO Andrea de Gottardo, an experienced bank executive, joined Kroo as Chief Risk Officer in 2018.
“We want to build the world’s greatest social bank: a bank dedicated to its customers and to the world we live in,” he said.
“We’re going to do more than just work with Kroo customers to improve their relationship with money and provide them with access to fair loans.
“We’re going to offer them ways to actively take part in making our world a better place, like carbon-offsetting and a tree-planting referral programme.”
Kroo will use its Series A funding to drive its mobilisation phase – scaling up operations, growing its team across engineering, marketing, product, compliance and customer service, and further developing its product offering and app ahead of launch in 2022.
Lead investor Karsan said: “The reason I’m excited about Kroo is that it has a concrete opportunity to dramatically change the way people feel about their bank, for good.
“Kroo has an exceptionally talented management team and a nimble tech stack that will enable the continuous delivery of banking features customers really care about.
“I’m confident Kroo is building a sustainable bank and am excited to support them on the next stage of their growth journey.”