Ireland is actually quite the hotbed of fintech, with more companies potentially moving there post-Brexit. Dublin-based Plynk, the fintech previously known as Bynk (pardon the Prince reference), has raised a seed round of $818K for a payments app whose purpose is to have fun sending money.
According to their blog, the name change of the firm came about when Irish regulators informed the management team that "Ireland’s Central Bank Act 1971 states 'a person, other than the Bank, shall not… hold himself out or represent himself as a banker' which apparently Bynk risked doing by using a 'variant, derivative or translation' of the word bank." The tongue-in-cheek blog entry headline reads "I'm too pretty for prison, & other reasons Bynk changed name", and the photo accompanying the entry shows one of the co-founders with a thought bubble stating "I'd be fine. I've seen 'Orange is the New Black'." And that fun sense of humor permeates throughout the site as well.
The founders, both working on the same idea but separately from California & Ireland, were introduced by mutual friends in 2015, and ultimately teamed up to co-found the company. They have a really fun, fresh website and blog, and they have a social feature tied in to the money transfer apparatus. In theory, you do this when you send a Paypal payment as well, but they've made it cute and fun, and cute and fun sells.
Total Equity Funding
$839.67k in 2 Rounds
Most Recent Funding
$817.93k Seed on August 26, 2016
Read Full Listing at Crunchbase