On August 16, Revolut announced an elegant way for long-serving staff to cash in on their equity ownership in the fast-growing and profitable financial super-app. Ahead of a possible IPO, it has retained Morgan Stanley as placement agent on a secondary share sale that allows employees to divest stock to three institutional investors.
These are Coatue, a specialist technology investor in public and private companies; D1 Capital Partners, the hedge fund founded in 2018 by billionaire and former chief investment officer of Viking Global Investors Daniel Sundheim; and Tiger Global, an existing investor in Revolut.
Amid the uncertainty over private company valuations, exacerbated by the public market volatility of early August and a decline in capital raising by technology companies, lining up these institutional bidders to provide liquidity to the company’s key employees looks smart.
Nik Storonsky, chief executive of Revolut, points out: “It’s their hard work, innovation and dedication that has driven us to become the most-valuable private technology company in Europe.”
And the transaction brings something else, while venture fund raising remains tricky for most fintechs.
“We’re
