Crowdcube · UK

Revolut’s 2016 crowd round: about 400x for the shares sold in 2024

433 people put about £1m into Revolut on Crowdcube in 2016. In 2024 they could sell some shares at about 400 times the price, but only a small part of them.

Past returns are not a guide to future returns. General information, not advice.

The figures

Multiple About 400x Realised in part

Platform
Crowdcube
Country
UK
Crowd round
2016
Entry price or valuation
$2.14 a share, at a £42m pre-money valuation
Exit or latest event
Share sale opened to crowd holders at $865.42 a share

Revolut: crowd round in 2016; entry at $2.14 a share, at a £42m pre-money valuation; exit or latest event: Share sale opened to crowd holders at $865.42 a share.

The round

Revolut raised money from the public a year after it was founded. Crowdcube's pitch page (opens in a new tab) records £1,007,050 from 433 investors in July 2016, at a pre-money valuation of £42,065,361. City A.M. (opens in a new tab) gives the same round as a 2.39% stake, priced at $2.14 a share.

A second round followed on Seedrs, now Republic Europe, in 2017. City A.M. (opens in a new tab) puts it at £3.8m from 4,260 people, at a £276m pre-money valuation and £8.57 a share. Those investors paid a much higher price, so the 400x on this page does not describe them.

What happened

The first chance to sell came in August 2018. BusinessCloud (opens in a new tab) reported 19x for those who chose to sell, after a round that valued the company at around £1.2bn. One backer it named sold a sixth of his allocation.

The second came in December 2024, in a sale valuing Revolut at $45bn. City A.M. (opens in a new tab) reported that crowd holders were offered $865.42 a share. Republic had threatened legal action before the sale was opened to them, and City A.M. (opens in a new tab) wrote that almost all of the 2016 backers had been unable to crystallise their return until then.

What the figure does and does not say

$865.42 against $2.14 is about 404 times, and City A.M. (opens in a new tab) calls it 400 times. It is realised only for what was actually sold. Crowdcube and Republic users were allocated $19.3m in that sale, while the same report valued their holdings at about $426m and $378m. So about 2% of the crowd's position had a buyer, and the rest stayed in Revolut at a price no one had paid them yet.

The figure takes no account of platform fees or tax, and we have no source for how many of the 433 (opens in a new tab) sold. A reader comparing it with other cases should keep two things apart: the price that was offered, and the share of a holding that could be sold at it.

Timeline

  1. July 2016

    £1,007,050 raised from 433 investors on Crowdcube. Crowdcube (opens in a new tab)

  2. 2017

    £3.8m raised from 4,260 people on Seedrs, at £8.57 a share. City A.M. (opens in a new tab)

  3. August 2018

    First sale for crowd holders, reported at 19x. BusinessCloud (opens in a new tab)

  4. December 2024

    Crowd holders offered $865.42 a share, with $19.3m allocated across both platforms. City A.M. (opens in a new tab)

Sources

  1. Crowdcube, Revolut's July 2016 pitch (opens in a new tab)
  2. City A.M., 5 December 2024: Revolut crowdfunders in line for 400 times return (opens in a new tab)
  3. City A.M., 16 December 2024: Revolut investors cash in with $1bn share sale (opens in a new tab)
  4. BusinessCloud, 2 August 2018: Revolut's early crowd backers make 19x returns (opens in a new tab)

By Raise Sonar. Published . Sources read .

Every case, with the base rates · Equity crowdfunding raises open now