While Venmo or Splitwise are actually “debt collection” tools that require one person to pay the entire bill and then ask others to ask for funds, the bill is not cracked when it comes to payments. European startups cinoJust proposed such a product, now 3.5 million euros have been raised in a round of seed funding led by London-based Balderton Capital.
The live shared payment app allows groups to allocate bills and pay stocks directly from any bank account or wallet of their choice.
Cino will now use the funding to expand to the UK after coming out of Tallinn, Estonia and operating in the continental Europe since 2023
Under CEOs Elena Churilova (formerly Bumble and Booking.com) and Coo Lina Saleh (formerly Cornell University), Cino seems to have caused a sensation between Gen Z, who don’t like “financial embarrassment” where the accounts of the Union Bank account (used to pay shared family bills) are in the dinosaurs.
To use Cino, the user connects its card to a mobile app and gets a virtual card there. They can then join the shared payment group, where they set adjustable custom split ratios, such as restaurant bills. The company said any group member can pay anything and everyone’s share will be automatically deducted at checkout.
All payments appear transparently in the group feed, and users can join or leave the payment group at any time.
Currently, all users will become CINE users of the app’s work, but the company has also built a new feature that you can join directly via Apple Pay or Google Pay.
Cino claims to have 100% monthly growth in markets such as Finland and Italy, and says its customers use the app on average 17 times a month, up to €3,000.
“The way to set it up is similar to how WhatsApp works,” explains Elena Churilova, co-founder and CEO of Cina. “You just create a group and we issue a virtual card. You can add people, remove people from that virtual card, or change the split ratio.”
Cino’s journey began with Churilova working at Bumble and began allocating fees with colleagues: “I tried every possible tool to figure out how to keep my weekend away from accounting practice,” she said. “And then, I just thought about that moment, for example, ‘Why isn’t anyone able to build a way to pay together?’”
The app also expands with network effects, as each new CINE user can invite 2-4 other users for free within the first six months of joining.
“People have long embraced standard bill breakdowns, debt tracking and repayment requirements are the only way to manage shared fees – just because there is no choice,” Cino Investor Greta Anderson of Balderton Capital said in a statement. “Cino’s viral growth shows that there is an alternative that users like.”
Connect Ventures and Tera Ventures also participated in the round with Angels, including Barney Hussey-Yeo (founder of Cleo).
