Revolut investor slashes $5 billion from fintech’s valuation

A Revolut investor has written billions off its $33bn (£28bn) valuation, two years after the finance app became Britain’s most valuable start-up.

The American investor Triplepoint Venture Growth has cut its internal valuation of the Revolut shares by 15 percent. The write-down implies a valuation of USD 28 billion, down from the USD 33 billion the company was valued at in the summer of 2021.

Revolut faced fresh questions last week when the auditor issued a qualified opinion on its long-delayed 2021 financial statements. The startup has not yet secured a banking license in the UK.

Other high-profile fintech startups including Checkout.com and Klarna have dramatically cut their valuations in recent months amid a decline in public tech stocks and higher interest rates.

Revolut has given no indication that it has reduced its own valuation, and unlike rivals that have slashed value, it has not been forced to cut jobs or raise new funds to subsidize losses.

Investors often adjust their own valuations of privately held companies, regardless of the business itself. Triplepoint’s downgrade is believed to be the first public downgrade of Revolut’s valuation since 2021’s giant fundraising from investors including SoftBank and Tiger Global.

The investment made Revolut the highest-valued start-up in the UK and more valuable than NatWest, as well as making CEO Nikolay Storonsky a multi-billionaire on paper. Rishi Sunak, then chancellor, hailed the funding as “great news” and called the company a “UK fintech success story”.

The company will remain the UK’s most valuable start-up even at the lower share price. Payments company Checkout.com, which passed Revolut last year, later cut its valuation to $11 billion.

Triplepoint owns 25,920 Revolut shares, bought in 2017. Last week it marked down their fair value from $10.1 million to $8.6 million, as well as reducing the valuation of warrants that allow it to buy more shares.

A Revolut spokesman said: “We do not engage in speculation about our valuation. Since our last funding round, which valued us at $33 billion, Revolut’s business has continued to perform strongly in all markets worldwide, as well as reporting our first full year of profitability.”

Revolut’s 2021 accounts, published last week, said the company was profitable for the first time. However, auditor BDO said there was a risk that £477m of its £636m in revenue may have been “materially misstated”.