Participated · Series A · Feb 2022

Banked, founded in 2018 and based in London, provides a "Pay by Bank" service that lets shoppers select their bank at checkout and approve payments via their mobile banking app. The company uses open-banking APIs to process payments directly from users' accounts, positioning the service as faster and cheaper than card settlement. Banked has strategic partnerships and previously raised funding from Bank of America. The startup has about 100 staff and says it will grow the team as it expands its US presence in the coming months. Banked recently published a 21-slide pitch deck used to close its latest round. To date the company has raised just over $50 million. Banked is a London-based fintech that offers an alternative to traditional card schemes by enabling consumers to pay without entering financial data or creating an account. Authorizations are biometric, no financial details are shared, and merchants receive funds in real time. The platform embeds incentives and rewards inside the payment process to drive customer engagement and loyalty. Banked says its fees can be up to 90% lower than traditional payment methods and it aims to deliver cheaper payments, lower fraud and instant refunds. It competes with TrueLayer, Trustly and Volt but presents a more end-to-end experience rather than just rails and infrastructure. Financially, the company raised a £2.35M seed in 2020 and has now raised more than $30 million in total to date. Banked builds account-to-account payment software that uses open banking/PSD2 to initiate payments directly from a payee’s bank account, enabling near real-time settlement. The platform charges a single low processing fee of 0.1%, which it says is a fraction of the typical 1–4% market rate, and claims it can reduce fraud by about 96% because authentication is handled by customers' banks. Banked exited beta last month and targets use cases where cash flow and high processing fees are critical, including wallet top-ups, trading apps, car financing, charities, and high-value e-commerce. The company emphasizes empowering merchants to offer the payment option while leveraging consumers' trusted relationships with their banks. Longer term, Banked plans to move beyond payment initiation into checkout features, commercial relationships with banks, and partnerships around loyalty, insurance and other checkout services. Banked is a London-based fintech that raised £1.5m in seed funding led by Backed VC. The company will use the funds to continue developing its product and plans to release its first product in early 2019. Banked's platform connects people’s bank account data to third-party applications, allowing users to make informed decisions and enabling direct payments. Information is delivered via APIs and supported by consent flows. Launch features include bank account connections, spending analysis, balance and income verification, and low-cost payments. Banked is led by founder and CEO Brad Goodall and will continuously add a library of ready-to-use functions and actions.