European money messaging app Plynk raises €25M in Series A funding round

Plynk, a money messaging app headquartered in Dublin, has raised €25 million in a Series A funding round led by private investment trust, Swiss Privée Ltd.

The startup made the announcement at MoneyConf, Madrid, Spain. The investment marks one of the largest ever Series A raises in Irish history, according to the official release.

“Today marks a significant milestone for Plynk. From the beginning, it has been our aim to remove the complexities and awkwardness of person-to-person payments. This funding brings us closer to fulfilling this goal; first across Europe and soon worldwide,” said Charles Dowd, CEO and Co-Founder of Plynk.

Charles Dowd and Clive Foley co-founded Plynk in 2015 in response to the need for a user-friendly consumer application enabling the instant, effortless and transparent transfer of money among friends. Linked to users’ Facebook accounts, Plynk users can send money as a message to a single contact or in group chats instantly and with no fees. Once a Plynk account is created, users receive a dedicated IBAN and virtual Mastercard for online payments. In addition, the application plans to integrate with both Apple and Android Pay, enabling users to spend their money across multiple outlets.

The Plynk app launched in January 2017 initially targeting the 18-25 market. Following a soft launch, it has grown to over 6,000 users across Android and iOS within the Irish market, and plans to expand further into Europe with eyes on Spain and Portugal next.

“Our growth plan is simple: ‘become a verb, in every European language.’ Over 2017, we will use this secured funding to expand into new markets as well as add GBP to our platform. Hiring will also be a priority, adding more team members to continue development on our core product and to build more features unique to the social payments industry,” added Dowd. “Today sending a photo, video, or chat to a friend has become second nature to students, graduates and young adults. This cohort have become accustomed to the free and instant transfer of data using purely their mobile phone. This is also the generation that can see when their friend is typing. No wonder they find it hard to fathom that a bank transfer can take days”.

Plynk, founded in the NDRC in 2015, was developed at the Bank of Ireland WorkBench in Dublin’s Silicon Docks. In October 2016, it raised €725,000 in seed investment with backing from Bank of Ireland’s Start-Up and Emerging Sectors Equity Fund, managed by venture capital firm Delta Partners, Enterprise Ireland, the NDRC and a number of angel investors. Now a team of eight, Plynk has over 20 roles in engineering and growth to fill in the next 18 months.

“The intersection between social and payments is an exciting area because there is still a customer need. There is an awkwardness around sharing expenses among peers, whether it is splitting a lunch bill, sending rent to a roommate or sharing costs of a holiday like a hotel or flights. With Plynk, users send money to a name, not an account number. This turns a normally formal and uncomfortable task into a transparent, instant, social interaction. This is the change we are looking to make,” concluded Dowd.