Value of Molten Ventures’ stake in Revolut more than doubles after employee share sale

Molten Ventures said the value of its stake in Revolut has more than doubled after the British fintech secured a $45bn (£34.9bn) valuation in a share sale by employees.

The London-listed venture capital investor said on Wednesday that Revolut’s announcement last week, which cemented its status as Europe’s most valuable private tech firm, implied an uplift of around £95m in the value of Molten’s holding.

Molten said its stake in the banking app would be worth roughly £160m based on Revolut’s new valuation, up from £65m as of 31 March 2024.

The news comes after Revolut – which won a long-awaited UK banking licence from regulators last month – struck a deal for investors including Coatue, D1 Capital Partners and Tiger Global to buy shares from its staff.

Revolut’s new valuation marks an increase from the $33bn (£25.6bn) figure it previously secured in a 2021 funding round and makes the firm one of the UK’s most valuable banks.

“Revolut has recently gone from strength to strength. It is great to see the business able to reward its people for their contribution to its growth, and at a valuation which provides significant upside to our own,” Martin Davis, Molten’s chief executive, said on Wednesday.

“This shows the benefit to our investors of the prudent approach we take to NAV [net asset value] and we look forward to updating on the precise uplift in more detail when we next report results.”

Analysts at Peel Hunt said the implied uplift in the value of Molten’s investment, as well as a series of exits aligning with their carrying values, “further validates” the firm’s NAV.

They noted that Molten trades on a roughly 40 per cent discount to NAV per share and around a seven per cent discount to investment cost per share, despite the firm’s share price rising approximately 75 per cent over the past six months.

Molten is due to publish its interim results on 30 September.