Mubadala in Abu Dhabi takes packages at Revolut

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Abu Dhabi sovereign investor Mubadala has taken a stake in Revolut for the first time, participating in a share sale that last month valued the London-based fintech at $45 billion and raised at least 200 million dollars for founder and CEO Nik Storonsky.

The Middle East fund was among investors such as Coatue, D1 Capital Partners and Tiger Global that participated in the sale of $500 million of shares by Revolut employees in August, according to three people with knowledge of the transaction. The size of Mubadala’s investment could not be immediately determined.

Storonsky, who co-founded the bank in 2015, sold his shares worth between $200 million and $300 million, according to a person familiar with the transaction. The estimated value of the stake Storonsky sold in August was first reported by Sky News.

The stake Storonsky sold represented about half of the total value of the deal, in which thousands of employees sold about $500 million of their stock, the person added. Its proceeds could benefit Storonsky’s effort to build the venture capital fund QuantumLight, which he founded two years ago.

The investment firm led by Chief Executive Ilya Kondrashov aims to identify the next generation of tech winners with “artificial intelligence-based investing,” building a proprietary system to track “the entire universe of VC-backed companies from the ’90s ” and to identify “robust”. and stable models of success,” according to its website.

Before he reduced his stake by selling shares, Storonsky’s stake in Revolut would have been worth nearly $8 billion at a $45 billion valuation, according to a Financial Times review of corporate filings.

Mubadala’s investment comes as the sovereign wealth fund ramps up efforts to deploy capital in Europe, the most active region for venture deals after North America, according to data provider PitchBook. The investor has participated in at least 28 European deals over the past five years, accounting for more than a fifth of its deals globally.

It also invested in Swedish fintech Klarna, but did not previously back Revolut.

The stake sale to Mubadala also comes as Revolut pursues an aggressive global expansion plan.

The fintech received a long-awaited UK banking license in July, which it hopes will allow it to gain further regulatory approvals in key markets, including the US. Revolut’s application has been delayed by issues, including a warning from its auditor that most of its 2021 revenue “may be materially misstated” before the issue is resolved.

Revolut already has over 45 million customers globally, including around 9 million in the UK. It has an EU banking license from the authorities in Lithuania and received one in Mexico this year. The company posted a pre-tax profit of £438m in 2023, up from a £25m loss in 2022.

Japanese investor SoftBank, which participated in Revolut’s previous fundraising, did not take part in the latest sale after it was forced to divest its preferred share class as Revolut tried to satisfy regulators in its bid for a banking license from Great Britain.