UK challenger bank Revolut is rumoured to be on the cusp of raising $1bn from Softbank and other investors, but it won’t be enough to topple Klarna as Europe’s fintech king.

The Blighty-born neobank is said to be in talks to raise a massive funding round, according to sources close to the matter speaking with Sky News. The new cash injection is expected to see Revolut’s valuation skyrocket to between $30bn and $40bn, up from the $5.5bn valuation it achieved in January 2020 after completing its $500m Series D round. It then topped up its coffers with an additional $80m last summer, according to GlobalData’s Intelligence Centre.

The $5.5bn valuation briefly gave Revolut the bragging rights of calling itself Europe’s most valuable privately-owned fintech company. However, it has since been overtaken by buy-now-pay-later giant Klarna. The Swedish fintech goliath first achieved a $31bn valuation in March following a $1bn funding round. Then it smashed that figure by achieving an eye-watering $45.6bn valuation on the back of a $639m SoftBank-led funding round in June.

Which brings us back to Revolut. The neobank and SoftBank have been in talks in the past for funding, but so far nothing has materialised. And it seems as if we’ll have to wait some more to see if they have better luck this time. Sky News’ sources said an official announcement was still weeks away.

The news about Revolut’s funding comes just days after the neobank revealed that its losses had grown to over ÂŁ200m, up from ÂŁ106.5m in 2019.

Over the past year, Revolut has been busy launching glow-in-the-dark payment cards and expanding its reach across the globe.

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In March, the challenger bank upped the ante in its efforts to conquer the American market by applying for a US banking licence. As Verdict reported at the time, founder and CEO Nik Storonsky shouldn’t hold his breath waiting for the licence as getting one is a complex task that will probably take years to complete.