Moneybox is Europe’s newest unicorn, and it’s testing London’s new private market to prove it

Moneybox is Europe’s newest unicorn, worth £800m, or $1.1bn. But no fundraise set that price. Staff did, by selling shares on London’s untested new private market.

Moneybox, the British savings and investing app, is now a unicorn. It has put a value of about £800m, or $1.1bn, on itself, the Financial Times first reported. The number is a milestone. The way it got there is the more interesting part.

This is not a funding round. Instead, long-serving employees will sell up to £45m of shares, and that sale sets the price. It runs on the London Stock Exchange’s new Private Securities Market.

How Pisces works

The market runs on a government framework called Pisces, the Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System. It lets private companies open occasional, permissioned trading windows. Staff and early backers can cash out without the cost and disclosure of a full IPO.

Moneybox’s sale runs through Crowdcube at a fixed price, Tech Funding News reported. Employees sell first, and an auction on the market follows later in July. Access is invite-only, with Moneybox controlling who can buy.

The 💜 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

The company itself framed the moment as a first. “PISCES represents an important innovation for UK capital markets”, said co-founder and executive chair Ben Stanway in the company’s announcement, “and we are proud to be among the first companies helping demonstrate how it can support the next generation of ambitious private business.”

A price with an asterisk

There is a catch worth naming. A normal unicorn valuation comes from outside investors bidding in a competitive round. This one comes from an employee sale, on a market with thin trading and no public price history.

Nobody has tested whether that price would survive a real fundraise. It is a fair question for every company that uses Pisces, not just Moneybox.

The underlying business, at least, is real. Founded in 2016 by Ben Stanway and Charlie Mortimer, Moneybox now serves more than 1.9 million customers. It holds over £23bn in assets. It passed £115m in revenue in 2025 and booked its third straight year of profit. The £800m tag is up about 45% on its last mark, set in October 2024.

London’s bid to keep its winners

The bigger story is what London is trying to prove. For years, Britain’s best tech firms have made the same complaint. Staying private traps staff and early investors. Going public means a shallow home market, or a drift to New York. Pisces is the compromise: liquidity at home.

Moneybox is not the first to test it. The self-driving company Wayve ran an $85m tender at an $8.5bn valuation. The exchange has also courted Revolut, now weighing a secondary at a $115bn valuation, and OakNorth. Klarna and Monzo sit in the same holding pattern, big and private, their investors waiting.

The question London wants answered is whether Pisces becomes a real alternative to floating, or just a way to delay the IPO a little longer. Moneybox is one of the first companies whose numbers will help decide.