Monzo, the UK digital bank, is fielding two separate approaches at once: takeover talks with Brazil’s Nubank and private-equity interest from Advent International in a minority stake. Sky News reported yesterday that Monzo’s board is in early-stage talks over a sale to Nu Holdings’ Nubank (NYSE: NU) that could value the London-based lender at £8bn to £10bn.
A follow-up Sky News report, published today, said Advent International, alongside other buyout firms, has separately held initial talks about buying a sizeable minority stake in Monzo. Advent previously owned Worldpay, the payments group, before its listing on the London Stock Exchange.
Bankers cited by Sky News said a minority-stake deal with a private equity firm would only proceed if the Nubank talks stall, framing Nubank as the more advanced option and Advent’s interest as a parallel, contingent track. Monzo, Nubank and Advent all declined to comment.
Monzo’s board is also weighing a third route: a fresh funding round, expected to value the bank above £8bn, with proceeds earmarked for expansion into mainland Europe. Nothing is confirmed, and three distinct paths remain open.
The reported £8bn-£10bn range would roughly double the £4.5bn valuation Monzo achieved in October 2024, when Singapore’s GIC and StepStone Group bought into an employee and secondary share sale.
| Date | Transaction type | Valuation |
|---|---|---|
| December 2021 | Tencent-led funding round | About $4.5bn |
| October 2024 | Secondary/employee share sale (GIC, StepStone Group) | £4.5bn |
| September 2026 | Reported Nubank sale talks / possible funding round | £8bn-£10bn |
Monzo’s valuation markers have roughly doubled in under two years, from the 2021 Tencent-backed funding round to the prospective Nubank price range. Nubank itself is listed on the New York Stock Exchange with a market capitalisation of about $65.5bn, giving it the scale to fund a takeover of this size.
Monzo, which now has more than 16 million customers, has grown revenue and profit sharply: Reuters, citing Monzo’s annual report, put statutory pretax profit at £87.3m for the year to 31 March 2026, up from £60.5m a year earlier, on revenue of £1.7bn.
Advent recently explored a $53bn bid for PayPal, underlining its appetite for large fintech deals even as a Monzo stake would sit well below that scale. Any move on Monzo depends first on how the Nubank talks progress.