Chime reaches valuation of $14.5bn

Chime raised $485 million in a Series F funding round that values the American digital banking decacorn at $14.5 billion.

The US challenger bank had eight million users back in February. The last valuation was estimated at $5.8 billion in December 2019. The value skyrocketed $1.5 billion to $14.5 billion in less than two years.

Chime’s valuation more than doubled since its last funding round in December. This comes as the company benefited from American’s migration to digital banking, which has accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Chime’s monetization model is focused on card transactions, unlike many European challenger banks, where the card transaction fees are more regulated.

“Nobody wants to go into bank branches, nobody wants to touch cash anymore, and people are increasingly comfortable living their lives through their phones,” Chief Executive Officer Chris Britt said to CNBC.

“We have a website, but people don’t really use it. We’re a mobile app, and that’s how we deliver our services, he added.”

The plan, the executive said, is to make the company “IPO-ready” within the next 12 months.

“For the best companies, the money spigot is wide open,” Index Ventures Partner Mark Goldberg previously told the Financial Times. “If it’s an obviously top 10 percent company, there’s just a huge amount of money being thrown at them by the VC world.”