UK-based Koto, a fintech project founded by Ukrainians, raises a €1.4M investment round

Fintech startup Koto, which was launched in London by the co-founders of monobank, has raised a €1.4 million round, EU-Startups reports. The information about the deal was also confirmed to AIN.UA by Misha Rogalskiy, co-founder of the project.

“These are investments from angel investors, whom AVentures and Yevgen Sysoyev helped us to attract. The money will be used for the distribution, strengthening the local team, and attracting first clients,” Rogalskiy said.

When asked how difficult it was to raise investments in the UK market, the co-founder of the project answered that it was not easy, especially during the lockdown. “At an early stage, a Zoom call was enough for most investment firms, but, of course, personal meetings were more effective,” he noted.

About Koto

Koto is a mobile banking application from Oleg Gorokhovskyi and Misha Rogalskiy, former managers of PrivatBank, a Ukrainian bank. In March this year, it was launched in beta.

Unlike the Ukrainian product monobank, which provides full banking services, Koto is a banking application that focuses on crediting. This is because the company has a non-banking license in the UK.

“Despite being the founder of a successful business in Ukraine, when I first moved to London I was unable to access credit from high street banks. This is because I was considered “thin file” – I didn’t have a UK credit history the banks could base a decision on. We founded koto because there are 12 million other credit worthy people in the UK who are excluded by mainstream lenders. After proving our business model in Ukraine, we are excited to disrupt the UK consumer credit market with a company that brings a prime product, experience and service to near-prime credit. We’re here to take the fear and stress out of credit in the UK,” told Misha Rogalskiy, Executive Chairman of koto, to EU-Startups.