Overview
Xinja is an independently owned and operated Australian neobank disrupting the age-old banking industry right at its core. As our first ever Australian retail equity crowdfunding company, Xinja has continued to kick a whole lot of goals over the past couple of years. It’s raised with us every year in fact, and most recently completed an exclusive wholesale round as it looks to ramp up growth even more. The reason for completing a wholesale round was that Xinja exceeded the CSF asset cap as defined by ASIC, and thus unfortunately weren’t able to expand their offering to our retail investors.
What is Xinja
Xinja is operated by a world-class team from a range of industries, with some extremely talented and experienced individuals leading the company’s success, including Founder and CEO Eric Wilson. Unlike other Australian neobanks, Xinja is not a subsidiary of a larger traditional bank, and is leading the charge in disrupting the industry.
Xinja's Success
Only 47 days after its hard launch to market, Xinja already held over $300 million in deposits with over 25,000 customers. The user-friendly app, customer-first mentality and generous 2.25% interest rate in the ‘stash’ account were key factors that set Xinja apart from the traditional banks, with a majority of funds flowing directly from big 4 bank accounts. In this time, Xinja experienced more than five times the press coverage of its nearest competitor. To show its commitment to its customers, Xinja also elected to maintain its industry-leading interest rate despite the recent cuts to the cash rate.
Investors in this round were joining a larger $50 million Series D raise, alongside high power institutional investors. Despite a high minimum investment of $20,400, Xinja secured 46 new wholesale investors.
Notably, during the raise Xinja secured a whopping $433 million investment from Dubai’s World Investments over the next 24 months. Eric Wilson said: “We think this is the largest single investment in an Australian neobank or start-up, and combined with exceptional customer acquisition and deposit growth, positions Xinja Bank as a frontrunner in the Australian neobank market.”
Looking Forward
This investment and the success of the capital raise with Equitise demonstrate the strength of the company and its massive potential in the future of Australian and global banking.
Xinja will be using these funds to continue to develop its technology and expand into additional financial products to lead the company to breakeven and profitability. A key factor in this includes the offering of loans to customers. The company also plans to continue to heavily invest in marketing to grow its user base, and also must set aside a proportion of funds as regulatory capital.
Whilst still illiquid, early investors in Xinja can be happy with their investment. When Xinja first raised with Equitise, they were valued at around $40 million. With the second raise, the valuation had jumped to around $90 million. Now, it’s valued at over $230 million, representing a nearly 5x increase in value for Equitise shareholders who invested back in 2018!
Xinja is one of the great CSF success stories in Australia, and we are so excited to continue following its journey as it grows and reaches more Australians.