OREANDA-NEWS.  Mondo, the mobile-first challenger bank, has reached its ?1 million fundraising target in 1 minute 36 seconds. The Passion Capital backed mobile bank received unprecedented interest for its crowdfunding campaign from more than 8,500 people. Today 1861 people invested an average of ?542 and will share 3.33% equity in the soon-to-be bank via the UK's most popular investment crowdfunding platform Crowdcube. 

Crowd investors share the same voting rights as Passion Capital, one of Europe's leading early stage venture capital (VC) firms that has already invested ?7 million in Mondo, the largest amount of money ever invested by the firm.

Mondo is part of the wave of fintech businesses challenging the UK's financial services sector through its smart use of technology and customer-first attitude.   It is designed around a generation (so called millennials) that rely on their smartphones to access services and products they want, something the traditional banks are being slow to do, and are mistrustful of traditional banks.  

Mondo turned down additional investment offers from notable international investors in order to include its customers in this investment round.

Tom Blomfield, CEO of Mondo, said: "We're the first bank to enable customers to become shareholders through a crowdfunding platform. Our customers are already helping us to build the bank from the ground up by alpha testing the mobile app. They deserve to be a real part of our journey to be a bank that people can trust and puts them back in control of their finances. We want to continue to involve them in future funding rounds."

This is Mondo's second fundraise as it gets ready for a public launch and an accelerated roll-out of its services later this year. 

Along with owning shares in the bank, investors received an exclusive "Mondo Investor" Mastercard® Prepaid Debit card and access to the Mondo iPhone app, skipping the 30,000 strong waiting list.

Luke Lang, co-founder and CMO of Crowdcube said: "The eagerness of the crowd to get behind Mondo highlights the real need for change in banking and the increased interest in Britain's thriving fintech sector."

Eileen Burbidge, Partner at Passion Capital, commented: "This is a great start for Mondo as it embarks on a trajectory that could see it becoming a company the size of Facebook or Google for banking."