Snoop secures £15 million Series A funding, another victory for open banking

By Gaia Lamperti

Open banking platform Snoop has secured £15 million in Series A funding from leading American investment management firm Paulson & Co. Inc., hitting a post-money valuation of £47 million. The fundraising follows a previous round in December 2020, only eight months after the company’s launch, which raised £10 million and became Europe’s second-largest crowdfund after Chip’s last year.

Snoop aims to help users save an average of £1,500 per year via a money management app offering personalised, data-driven insights to spend, save and live smarter. The Norwich-based company takes the idea of money management even further than other fintechs by using secure open banking data and advanced analytics as a powerful force to find relevant money-saving opportunities. As of now, Snoop is connected with over 50 banks and has already successfully delivered over three million money-saving and money-management insights to customers.

“I’m delighted that Paulson has invested in the Snoop proposition, team and ambition, and that they – like us – view open banking as a major growth opportunity within the financial sector,” Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia, Executive Chair of Snoop and former CEO of Virgin Money said. She called the investment a “massive vote of confidence” which will play a key part in meeting the firm’s ambition to become a global leader in open banking and smart money management.

Snoop’s app has a laser-like focus on bad deals, poor value renewals and wasteful subscriptions, minor expenses if taken separately but which cost consumers in the UK around £12 billion every year without effective return in value. The apps guide users through identifying which expenses are not valuable for them, ending the deals and spending consciously by grouping all the financial arrangements in one place, offerings daily feed of smart spending tips and weekly spending reviews.

The firm leverages open banking, the use of open APIs to enable greater financial transparency, as a way to empower customers to be in control of their own financial data. The service is fundamental in helping to drive the growth of the fintech sector in the UK where the nine biggest banks – HSBC, Barclays, RBS, Santander, Bank of Ireland, Allied Irish Bank, Danske, Lloyds and Nationwide – are already releasing shared data in a standardised and secure form. Open banking currently benefits three million customers in the UK alone with new users being added at a rate of 2 million per year.

The funding from Paulson, which came shortly after Snoop won the ‘Best Innovation’ category at the 2021 British Bank Awards, will be invested in the company’s growth plans. These include fund product and distribution development and extension, as well as aid international expansion.  Previous investors include The Havisham Group, Sir Lloyd Dorfman, Pierre Lagrange, Salesforce Ventures and members of the Snoop management team.

Regarding the deal, Andrew Hoine, Partner at Paulson & Co. Inc. commented: “We view open banking as a major global market opportunity and Snoop has positioned itself to capitalise on this technology in a way that will allow the business to thrive and become an essential part of the way that we all manage our finances.”

The funding follows President Biden’s issuance of an Executive Order to accelerate the progress of open banking in the US, paving the way for it to become a mainstream part of the banking system and transform how people manage their money.