Climate fintech start-up Zero publicly launches sustainable money app
Climate fintech Zero has publicly launched its sustainability-focused money app alongside a new Crowdcube campaign targeting a pre-money undiluted valuation of £8.3 million.
![Zero - fintech news](https://www.fintechfutures.com/files/2024/08/land.png)
Climate fintech Zero launches money app (Image source: Zero)
The fintech, based in Cardiff, Wales, is led by founder and CEO Richard Theo, who previously founded Wealthify (acquired by Aviva in 2020) and ActiveQuote (acquired by Howden Group last year).
Having secured B Corp certification in July, Zero makes its market debut this week with personal accounts and debit cards, with consumers’ sustainable spending measured using an integrated GreenScore feature.
Theo tells FinTech Futures that this feature is “the first time anyone has presented personal sustainability in a way that people can engage with”.
“Money and bank apps have traditionally presented carbon footprint as KGs of carbon per transaction,” he continues. “It’s interesting data, but it’s not in a form that empowers anyone to act to reduce their impact.”
GreenScore differentiates from this approach by scoring the carbon footprint of everyday transactions against a proprietary index.
Swedish fintech Doconomy powers the estimates produced by this scoring system. Zero has also partnered with a number of other industry players to deliver its digital banking suite, including ClearBank for fund custody and Marqeta for transaction processing.
To support its debut, the fintech has launched a Crowdcube campaign to raise additional funds.
“Our pre-money undiluted valuation is just £8.3 million, representing a pre-launch valuation because success in the round is more important to us that protecting the founder shares,” Theo says.
A LinkedIn post by the company says the campaign has attracted the interest of over 600 early investors, and is expected to “go live privately” towards the end of this week.
“We’ve got an exciting line up of new features, products and services in the pipeline but the final order of these and timings are still work-in-progress,” concludes Theo.