One of Australia’s neobanks has crowdfunded $500,000 in under 9 hours
Xinja is expecting to raise up to $5 million.
A number of Australians are buying their piece of the digital banking revolution by purchasing shares in neobank Xinja's second equity crowdfunding campaign. Run through crowdfunding platform Equitise, this was the second raise of Xinja's which was opened up early to current investors, customers and people that had registered interest in Xinja. While shares are now available to be purchased on the Equitise platform, the minimum $500,000 has been passed and was done so in less than nine hours.
This is Xinja's second equity crowdfunding raise but the first since it announced it had received its restricted banking licence from the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA) in December 2018. Its first equity crowdfunding campaign was also successful, seeing the neobank raise $500,000 within 18 hours. It raised a total of $2.7 million at $1.25 a share.
Co-founder of Equitise Jonny Wilkinson said Xinja has received interest from investors, customers and the Australian public since its first raise.
"Xinja hit the ground running with its first equity crowdfund and interest continued to remain strong from previous and new investors who were keen to know when the next raise would be," Wilkinson said.
"Xinja is a fantastic example of the power of equity crowdfunding where 'the crowd' is given the opportunity to back a company they believe in."
Crowdfunding essentially allows everyday Australians to purchase shares in an early-stage company, with Equitise being a platform that allows people to do this.
In this current raise, Xinja shares will be issued at $2.04 each with a minimum investment of $255. Xinja expects to raise up to $5 million.
CEO of Xinja Eric Wilson said they are now a step closer to delivering real competition in banking.
"We are now working towards a full banking license from APRA (in 2019 subject to regulatory approval) we have ambitious plans in place for the years ahead," he said.
"We're all about making banking easy. We're about banking technology that more closely resembles what people expect from innovators and disruptors, like Netflix or Uber, as opposed to old-style, bricks and mortar-based banking."
Xinja currently has a prepaid travel card available in the market and a home loan available in pre-beta which it plans to launch, along with bank accounts, subject to regulatory approval.
Latest fintech news
Picture: Shutterstock
