Tech start-up Zumo unveils plans for £10m Series A fundraise

Edinburgh-based tech start-up Zumo, which is backed by Coldplay’s Scots-born bassist Guy Berryman, has unveiled plans to raise a further £10 million.

From left: Zumo co-founders Nick Jones and Paul Roach. Picture: Stewart Attwood.

The firm, which co-founded in the Scottish capital by Nick Jones and Paul Roach in 2017, describes itself as a non-custodial wallet and payments platform that allows traditional money and cryptocurrency to work “seamlessly” together.

It says its app, launched in the summer, arrived just in time for the latest bull run on Bitcoin, which hit a new three-year high on November 19 – and helps consumers invest in cryptocurrencies “safely and easily”. The app has just reached the 10,000 installs milestone.

Zumo said the latest funding push, hot on the heels of a crowdfunding raise, will help it “meet the demand of the growing crypto-curious market and take the benefits of cryptocurrency mainstream”.

Users from across the UK have been engaging with the app on the back of a refer and share scheme and a Seedrs crowdfund that saw Zumo exceed its £1m target in four days.

Mr Jones, co-founder and chief executive, said: “A lot of our initial growth was due to word of mouth – users discover just how easy crypto can be and they’d tell their friends about us. That inspired us to create our Refer and Share rewards programme.”

Early investors in the start-up in addition to Mr Berryman include Murray Capital – the investment vehicle of former Rangers boss Sir David Murray and his family.

Zumo said that recent moves by Chancellor Rishi Sunak to encourage further regulation of the crypto sector and to explore a national digital currency have helped build momentum and encourage more people to engage with this “completely decentralised” way to store money digitally on the blockchain.

It added that its offering is “not just for early adopter crypto enthusiasts”.

Mr Jones added: “Most projects in the space are aimed at the 2 to 3 per cent of people who've already got cryptocurrency, but there aren’t that many aimed at bringing in a wider audience. From the start we designed Zumo to be easy to use without sacrificing security."

Zumo in August said the launch of its app saw its exchange volumes jump 400 per cent in a week.

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