DTC’s Daily Digest brings you the latest news on the world’s fastest growing direct-to-consumer brands. In today’s edition: Monzo prepare for US push by hiring Visa exec; Judopay and Tide announce partnership; and Mrs Wordsmith turns to Crowdcube. 

Monzo prepare for US push by hiring Visa exec

UK digital bank Monzo has hired Visa's global head of payment products and platforms, TS Anil, to lead its push into the US.

Anil, a 25-year financial services veteran with stints at Standard Chartered, Citi and Capital One behind him, will join Monzo as US CEO early next year.

Monzo launched an initial beta roll-out in the US in August, working with 1000 customers to gather feedback on what it says will be a bespoke product for the American market, where it has a 20,000-strong waiting list.

Anil will initially focus on hiring across product, operations and technology, major strategic initiatives and leading US regulatory engagement.

The new US chief says: "Over the last five years I have watched Monzo’s journey from small UK start-up to fully-fledged bank with over 3 million customers.

"Joining Monzo as US CEO is a fantastic opportunity to help recreate that magic in the US, and I’m delighted that I’ve been given the chance to be part of a team building the bank of the future in a market as large and exciting as the US."

Judopay and Tide announce partnership

Judopay, a leading mobile payments provider has announced it has partnered with business banking fintech, Tide.

Starting immediately, the partnership enables all Judopay clients to benefit from a year’s free money transfers when they sign up to a Tide business account through Judopay.

Judopay seeks to drive greater sales and repeat purchase for its clients and it does this by creating seamless payment experiences that remove friction and reduce shopping cart abandonment - now it can add access to Tide business accounts to its repertoire. This offering will be open to all clients as soon as they are processing with the payments provider.

Millie Hunter Partnerships Lead at Tide said: “We know how time consuming running a business can be, so we aim to save our members as much time and money as possible, so they can get back to doing what they love. It's great to work with Judopay, knowing that they too are focused on SME growth. We cannot wait to help their clients even further through the partnership!”

Mrs Wordsmith turns to Crowdcube

Mrs Wordsmith, one of the UK’s fastest-growing educational publishing & gaming companies, is fundraising on Crowdcube.

At the forefront of innovating the USD$33bn English language learning market, the company is into overfunding, having raised 115% of their initial £1m target. Mrs Wordsmith has seen unit growth of 38% month-over-month growth this year, and in 2019 they have launched in Europe, Canada and Australia, with eyes towards Asia and Latin America.

They will use the funding to launch a new product - Epic Word Adventure - a video game to enable children to expand their vocabulary. The money from this raise will accelerate the new release into new territories, and further develop exciting content for children to learn and love language.

The company added that “Education is behind the times. 600 [million] school-aged children are not learning a minimum in Math [and]  Reading. Children are now spending twice as much time playing video games as they do outside. Unlocking the secret of loving to learn is key to our goal of becoming the biggest mobile gaming & publishing company in education.”

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