Woodford-backed Atom Bank grabs £149m as Spanish bank BBVA ups its stake

Challenger bank Atom, which counts rapper Will.i.am as a board adviser, has today grabbed £149m in its latest capital raising.

Atom, which has previously secured backing from investors including Neil Woodford and Toscafund, has already brought in £1.3bn in deposits and lent £1.2bn in residential mortgages and business loans.

BBVA, which invested £85.4m and has ploughed in a total of £167m so far, upped its stake to 39 per cent and said the new investment signalled its “confidence in both the business strategy and management team”.

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“We are fully aligned with the vision of banking that Atom is pursuing, and the disruption it is already bringing to the UK financial services sector,” said BBVA’s chief executive Carlos Torres Vila.

Toscafund also contributed £54.4 in the latest funding round while increasing its stake, meaning Atom has now raised around £400m of equity capital in total since its creation in 2014.

Read more: Atom Bank secures £113m in new funding for app-only lender

Durham-based Atom, which claims to have the fastest account opening time with just five minutes from downloading the app to opening the account, aims to use the capital to continue drawing in new clients and building its core capabilities.

“This further significant injection of capital secures the bank’s place as a disruptive force in the mainstream of UK banking,” said the challenger’s chief executive Mark Mullen.

“We will continue to invest in growth, in our technology and in our products as we continue to push ahead with the support of our investors.”

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