London and Tallinn-based startup Monese is set to make staffing cuts and lower its ambitions for a funding round.
This all happened with regards to the COVID lockdown aftermath. Monese target customers are expats and immigrants who usually struggle to get a traditional bank account.
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Monese has reached two million users in January this year. It seemed ready to join the unicorn club as it closed in on a £100 million funding round.
But with the coronavirus crisis and lockdown Monese decided to change the structure of the company. It will be closing their offices in Berlin and Lisbon and consolidating staff in London and Talinn.
Monese opened its Lisbon office in October 2018. According to LinkedIn Monese has around 30 staff in Lisbon, and fewer than 5 in Berlin.
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A Monese spokesperson told AltFi: “It would be news if we were not making some changes as a result of the Covid-19 disruption. We cannot say what those changes will be in detail, nor how we will staff them, as we have to wait for a formal consultation process to take its proper course.”
“However, we are going to be focussing more of our resources on our core tech platform and banking infrastructure, and on our core European markets. This will allow us to better serve our current and prospective customers.”
