Overview
- Koho closed a C$130-million financing led by Mubadala and Savano on Thursday, valuing the company at about C$1.33 billion and bringing total equity raised to roughly C$507 million.
- The company says the proceeds provide the initial capital base required to meet regulator conditions for a Schedule 1 bank licence, which would allow Koho to hold customer deposits as a cheaper source of funding.
- Koho’s bank-licence application remains in phase two of OSFI’s multi-step review and could advance faster under a recent OSFI pilot and public comments that signal a more open approach to new entrants.
- The round drew sovereign, institutional and operator investors including Portage Ventures, Drive Capital, BDC Capital, HOOPP, Shopify’s Tobi Lütke and Affirm’s Michael Linford, which Koho presents as validation of its scale and strategy.
- Koho serves about 2.5 million members and reports more than C$200 million in annual revenue, uses partners such as People’s Trust and Propel for products and recently joined Interac’s e-Transfer system, and says a charter could let it offer higher savings rates and consumer loans while lowering its cost of capital by roughly 70 percent if approved.