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Chronicles

The story behind the story

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Sources: Revolut is in talks to raise between $750M to $1B from SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 and others at a valuation of over $30B

Sky News Mark Kleinman

Context & Ripple Effects

Revolut entered these talks valued at just $5.5B from 2020; a round above $30B would be roughly a six-fold jump in a single step, led by SoftBank's Vision Fund 2. The talks landed weeks later when Revolut closed an $800M Series E at $33B, adding Tiger Global alongside SoftBank.

The arc since then validates the price: employee and early-investor secondaries cleared at $40B+ and $45B in 2024 (a $500M share sale), a primary round marked it at $75B in 2025, and by mid-2026 sources pointed to a secondary at $115B following Revolut's UK bank license and US charter application.

First-order effects

  • SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 writes one of its largest fintech cheques of the period, anchoring a round that re-prices Revolut from $5.5B to north of $30B and hands existing holders paper gains without any new revenue disclosed.
  • Revolut gets $750M–$1B of growth capital while remaining private, funding expansion ahead of the banking-license milestones that later coverage shows driving its next valuation steps.

Second-order effects

  • A $30B+ private mark forces rival European fintechs into either matching mega-rounds or accepting relative devaluation, and pushes late-stage investors toward secondary sales — the route Revolut repeatedly used in 2024 to let employees cash out at $40B–$45B.
  • SoftBank's NAV-discounted shares mean each headline win of this size becomes an argument for the stock, tying Vision Fund deployment cadence directly to its public-market valuation.

Third-order effects

  • If the pattern holds, top-tier fintechs compound valuations through alternating primaries and employee secondaries while staying private past the point old IPO math would have applied — with regulatory licenses, not revenue alone, becoming the asset that resets the multiple.
  • Sovereign-scale funds like SoftBank effectively become the exit market for startup stakes, shifting liquidity from public listings to a recurring private-secondary cycle.

The trend: Late-stage fintech is compounding through ever-larger private rounds and employee secondaries, with banking licenses rather than public listings setting the valuation milestones.

Discussion

  • @markkleinmansky Mark Kleinman on x
    Exclusive: Fresh evidence emerges of heady fintech valuations as Revolut holds talks with SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 and other investors about raising up to $1bn at valuation of more than $30bn (£21.6bn). A deal remains some weeks from being finalised. https://news.sky.com/...