Griffin raises £19m as it trumpets a fully fledged banking licence
Founded by former Silicon Valley engineers, U.K.-based Griffin Bank, an API-driven banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform, just obtained a banking license, roughly one year after starting the application process. This means it has been given the green light from the U.K.’s financial services regulators, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), to exit “mobilization” and launch as a fully operational bank.
Griffin got its license roughly a year after starting the application process, in marked contrast to U.K.’s most valuable fintech Revolut, which has yet to secure a banking license despite repeatedly stating its intentions over a span of three years. (No doubt Revolut can take solace in the fact that from 2013 to 2019, only 28% of companies reached the application submission stage, according to the PRA and the FCA.)
Griffin says that it now offers a full-stack platform for fintech companies to offer banking, payments and wealth solutions via automated compliance and an integrated ledger. Griffin is less likely to offer banking accounts directly to consumers, but rather to other businesses that want to offer embedded financial solutions such as savings and safeguarding accounts as well as accounts for holding client money.
Investors are betting on the company achieving its aims. After raising $28.1 million, Griffin just raised another $24 million (£19 million) in an extended Series A round that was led by MassMutual Ventures, NordicNinja and Breega, with participation from existing investors Notion Capital and EQT Ventures and CircleRock Capital. Last June, Griffin raised $13.5 million in a Series A round led by MassMutual Ventures. The outfit has now raised around $52 million since its founding in 2017.
Griffin’s founders David Jarvis and Allen Rohner have plenty of experience to bring to the table. Jarvis was an early engineer at Standard Treasury (acquired by Silicon Valley Bank in 2015), after which he joined Airbnb, where he worked on infrastructure. Rohner founded software startup CircleCI. With Jarvis, he is the co-author of “Learning ClojureScript,” an introductory book to the ClojureScript language, which Griffin uses to build its systems.
The founders highlighted that Griffin’s is a deeply tech-driven product. The U.K. banking world has historically not been a particularly technology-friendly industry, but that changed a few years ago when Open Banking standards were forced on the super-traditional industry, leading to the launch of a swathe of neo-banks such as Starling, Monzo, Tide and others.