Swedish Venture Capitalist (VC) Kinnevik has written off its investment of Monese in full due to the uncertainty over its future participation in the sector.
The Stockholm-based VC led a $60m Series B funding round in Monese in 2018 and owns 20% of the company, however, it has announced a full write off of the banking service provider, reflecting a more careful investor approach.
Monese, which provides banking services for expats and immigrants – who typically struggle to get a traditional bank account – partnered with Paysafe in 2020.
The deal meant that Paysafe’s ecash solution, Paysafecash, could be used by consumers to top up Monese accounts directly with cash and also boosted its 40,000 cash top-up locations in the UK to a total of 110,000 across Europe.
The banking service provider also had a successful year in 2019, as it agreed a deal with PayPal, resulting in the online payments giant providing Monese’s clients access to more financial tools and the ability to “seamlessly” manage accounts on both platforms.
However, recently it has been a difficult period for the company. The firm in January reported a £30.5m loss in its accounts filed for 2022 and warned of its inability to continue unless it could raise additional funds.
Kinnevik’s announcement has added to the fintech’s woes, the VC stated: “We have sought to make large write-downs or write-offs in our portfolio’s long-tail of companies where our conviction has come down. In this quarter, that encompasses a full write-off of Monese.
“While there is still significant value in the company, the nature of our participation in its future is uncertain. This is what underpins our decision to write off our investment in full.”
