The Venture Codex

Led · Equity · Oct 2019

Oval Money, founded in London in 2016 by Benedetta Arese Lucini, Claudio Bedino, Edoardo Benedetto and Simone Marzola, builds digital payment and saving tools. Its platform, Oval, brings together customers and investments regardless of the capital available, tailored to users' habits and possibilities. The company emphasizes security standards consistent with those of a banking institution. Oval positions itself as a bridge between people and finance and seeks to enable investment access for a broad customer base. Through the new partnership with Eurizon, the company expects a distribution channel complementary to traditional networks that could be a meaningful growth factor and enable further digital initiatives to serve Italian and foreign customers. Oval previously established a business relationship with Banca 5 after Neva Finventures acquired a minority stake in June 2018. Oval Money provides a personal finance app powered by collective intelligence and machine learning that automates smart saving for consumers with variable income and expenses. The app is designed to analyze users' transactions and suggest or enact saving behaviors that fit their financial patterns. Co‑founded by Benedetta Arese Lucini, Claudio Bedino, Edoardo Benedetto and Simone Marzola (CTO), the team combines fintech and AI expertise. After its first year of operations the app analyzed 4.5 million transactions representing over £1 billion of spent value. The company currently has a team of 16 people and is backed by individual investors including Mauro del Rio and Fabio Cannavale, among others. Oval operates out of London, UK and Torino, Italy.