There’s no way Revolut is worth $33B 🙅🏽‍♂️; Coinbase eyes global expansion 🌍

FinTech is Eating the World, 23 March

Hey Everyone,

Good morning! Today’s issue is coming out late on purpose, and it’s a special one! 😎 We’re going to look at why there’s no way Revolut is worth $33 billion right now (with lots of bonus reads & analyses) and explore why Coinbase is prioritizing global expansion now (it’s a chance for EU + some deeper dives into Coinbase). Let’s jump straight into the super spicy stuff 🌶

There’s no way Revolut is worth $33B 🙅🏽‍♂️

The news 🗞 Sifted recently asked whether Revolut is really worth $33B right now? (and did a very good writeup too). I already have an answer to that - there’s no way Revolut is worth $33 billion.

Let’s take a look and learn why.

The macro 📊 Let’s look at the macro environment first. As you all know, it’s not great. But let’s talk numbers.

The biggest and most important deal that just took place was UBS acquiring its biggest rival Credit Suisse for $3.2 billion. Yes, it was a shotgun wedding that otherwise wouldn’t be deemed possible, yes CS 0.00%↑ has been struggling for years and was going from scandal to scandal. But there’s no way Revolut is worth 10X Credit Suisse, a bank with a 167-year-old brand, offices at premier locations around the world that alone are worth at least $1 billion, and $0.5 trillion of assets under management.

Let’s look at FinTechs now.

The most recent and biggest development here came from Stripe which raised $6.5 billion and almost halved its valuation from 2 years ago. It’s now valued at $50 billion. There’s no way one of the most important FinTechs in the Internet Era (with massive reach, scale, and projecting $1T in TPV in 2023) sees a ~50% correction and Revolut doesn’t. The same, by the way, goes for Adyen that’s currently worth similar to Stripe. No way!

P.S. Adyen is the fastest-growing global payments platform 🚀 [deep dive + 2 more reads]

An identical story is with other crown jewels of Europen FinTech. Back in December, payments FinTech Checkout.com had slashed its internal valuation to $11 billion. Less than a year ago, it was Europe’s most valuable FinTech with a whopping $40 billion valuation. Obviously, the craziest of them all is Klarna. In July 2022, the BNPL giant raised $800M and its valuation plunged by a whopping 85%. Less than a year ago it was Europe’s most valuable FinTech with a $46 billion price tag. Hence, there’s no way that the two “hottest” FinTechs in Europe are getting corrections of 72-85% while Revolut doesn’t move.

And it’s not only me who thinks this way. According to Sifted, one of the world’s leading secondary brokers, Setter Capital, has Revolut holdings listed at a discount of more than 50%. Also, a number of Revolut’s existing shareholders reportedly have already marked it down internally. 

Let’s look at more numbers and context and see why the $33B price tag for Revolut just doesn’t add up.

P.S. below you will also find deep dives into Revolut’s latest financials (very spicy!), and very detailed dives into Monzo, Klarna, Nubank, and PayPal.