De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) green-lights deal valuing bunq at €1.6 billion and bringing external capital into the company for the first time
Amsterdam, 2 December 2021: De Nederlansche Bank (DNB) has approved a €193 million funding round agreed between bunq and Pollen Street Capital, a British private equity firm. The deal values the Amsterdam-based challenger bank at €1.65 billion and sets a new record for a series A investment in a European fintech company.
bunq will use the injection of funds to fuel the company’s growth across Europe, following this year’s introduction of German, French and Spanish IBANs to its offering and the opening of offices in Paris and Cologne. To help achieve this goal, the bank plans to double its total number of staff by the end of 2022.
The new funds will also allow bunq to incorporate M&A into its business growth strategy. As part of the approved deal, bunq has made its first acquisition, securing the purchase of privately-held Irish lender Capitalflow.
"We’re incredibly excited to start this next chapter in bunq’s history. Being self-funded until now has given bunq the freedom to build a product our users love. Now we can scale up that mission across Europe and beyond”, says Ali Niknam, founder and CEO of bunq. Visit the bunq blog for more of Ali's thoughts on what today means for the company.
About bunq
bunq, Europe’s second-largest neobank, has rebuilt banking from the ground up. As the world’s first AI-powered bank, bunq’s proprietary AI powers every part of the business, from helping users with their finances, to being baked into bunq’s own operations. By developing a product rooted in its users’ wants and needs, bunq makes life easy for location-independent people and businesses, starting from the way they manage money: how they spend, save, budget and invest.
Pioneering many things considered impossible, bunq was the first bank to get a European banking permit in over 35 years, raised the largest series A round ever secured by a European fintech (€193 million), and was the first EU neobank to achieve structural profitability. As part of its mission to build the first global neobank, in October 2025 bunq also took its first step into the US as an approved broker-dealer, with more expansion to follow. Learn more: www.bunq.com
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