D.E. Shaw is in talks to lead a funding round for Monzo that would value the British digital bank at about £7bn, Sky News reported.
The US quantitative hedge fund has indicated interest in leading a raise of at least £300m, with the final size potentially landing between £300m and £500m. Sources said the valuation is likely to settle around £7bn, though terms are not fixed and other investors are also speaking to the company. Monzo and D.E. Shaw declined to comment.
The discussions come after the collapse of takeover talks with Brazil’s Nu Holdings that had contemplated a valuation of £8bn–£10bn. Separate talks with private equity firms over a minority stake (including Advent International, TPG and CVC) also stalled, after which Monzo shifted toward a more conventional venture-style round, the Financial Times reported last week. Nubank has continued to expand its digital and crypto offerings in Brazil even as it stepped back from the Monzo process.
Monzo was last valued at £4.5bn in a secondary share sale in October 2024. A deal near £7bn would mark a clear step-up from that level while remaining below the figures discussed in the earlier Nubank and PE processes.
The bank continues to scale. It has roughly 15–16 million customers and, in the year to March 2026, reported revenue of £1.7bn (up 39%) and adjusted profit before tax of £172.6m (up 20%), with deposits of £25.7bn. New CEO Diana Layfield has been steering product expansion and limited European growth after the firm shut its US operations earlier this year.
Why D.E. Shaw is circling Monzo
D.E. Shaw manages roughly $125bn and has a record of backing technology companies with public-market ambitions, including a position in Anthropic. An investment would place it alongside existing shareholders that include a Google affiliate and Singapore’s GIC. The firm’s consistent support for companies heading toward listings would keep the prospect of a Monzo IPO on the table in the coming years. UK ministers and the London Stock Exchange have been encouraging a flotation. A US listing remains possible given the investor base.
The talks remain at an early stage and no agreement has been reached. If completed, the round would give Monzo fresh capital for continued growth and European expansion while underscoring institutional appetite for scaled UK digital banks. For D.E. Shaw, it would add another high-growth technology name to a portfolio already tilted toward disruptors, reinforcing the quant firm’s willingness to deploy capital into private markets alongside its core hedge fund strategies.
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Andrew Samu
Andrew Samu, Editor-at-Large at Disruption Banking, shapes the publication’s global coverage of banking, capital markets and digital assets. Based at London’s Level39, he combines market analysis with a strong commercial perspective, informed in part by his role as Commercial Director at Verita HR.
