Griffin Raises £6.5M to Build BaaS Platform and Pursue Bank License
Griffin, a London-based Banking-as-a-Service startup founded in 2017 by CEO David Jarvis and CTO Allen Rohner, announced a £6.5 million funding round on November 16, 2020, led by EQT Ventures. Additional participants included Seedcamp, Tribe Capital, Paul Forster (co-founder of Indeed.com), Matt Robinson (co-founder of GoCardless and Nested), and Carlos Gonzalez-Cadenas (Partner at Index Ventures, former COO of GoCardless). The funds will be directed toward product development and Griffin's application for a full banking license from the UK's Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Griffin's platform takes a developer-first approach, integrating compliance, ledger technology, and banking license infrastructure to enable fintechs and brands to launch financial services efficiently. The round follows a £3 million seed round completed earlier in 2020. EQT Ventures' Tom Mendoza noted the company's strong founder-market fit and the growing embedded finance trend as key drivers of the investment.
Griffin was originally identified by EQT Ventures' AI-powered deal sourcing platform, Motherbrain.
- Signals growing investor appetite for full-stack BaaS platforms that bundle compliance and banking infrastructure under one license
- Griffin's pursuit of a proprietary bank license differentiates it from BaaS providers relying on partner banks, potentially offering greater control and regulatory clarity