2020 at Zumo

2020 at Zumo
by Amelie Arras April 2023

The year in review.

As we say hello to a new year, one that we hope can move us all forward from the struggles faced by so many in 2020, we look back at some of the positives and especially those that came out of what was overall an amazing year for Zumo, Bitcoin and the future of money.

We smashed fundraising targets, announced a heap of exciting new product features, added some amazingly talented people to the Zumo team and rewarded members of the Zumo family with various user incentives and opportunities.

Fundraising

From oversubscribed crowdfunding campaigns to charity walks, team Zumo had a great year when it came to fundraising.

Seedrs

Our Seedrs crowdfunding campaign began in August 2020 and within only 4 days we had reached our £1.1 million target. But the fun didn’t stop there and we closed our first public fundraising round 50% overfunded with overwhelming interest.

We are planning to secure a further £10 million in a Series A fundraise in the coming months which will enable us to expand our operations, meet the demand of the growing crypto-curious market and take the benefits of cryptocurrency into the mainstream.

We are extremely proud to be one of the few Scottish startups that was able to secure significant funding during what was undoubtedly a tough year. The response to our fundraising efforts so far has been humbling to say the least and we would like to thank everyone who invested in our belief to join us on the journey.

WasteAid walk

We’re working hard to make the world more aware of our values and Zumo’s unshakeable commitment to making the world more inclusive, borderless and sustainable. But we don’t just talk about what we want to see the future look like, we act on it.

In 2020 Zumo partnered with WasteAid, a small charity that fights poverty, pollution and climate change by sharing recycling skills and waste management education in the world’s poorest places last year. The Zumo team also set upon a sponsored virtual walk from Edinburgh, Scotland to Yaoundé, Cameroon, where WasteAid has one of its projects, in order to raise both awareness and money for WasteAid to purchase more equipment.

We walked a combined total of 4,206 miles and smashed our fundraising target of £3000 by over 130% and funds raised will go towards providing many villages in the poorest areas of the world with recycling kits, enabling them to battle plastic pollution that increases by the day and destroys the environment.

Zumo will be unveiling more functionality that supports WasteAid’s fight against pollution in 2021 and you can read more about the partnership over on our website.

As we set sail into a new year, the Zumo team wants to thank everyone that has been a part of any of our fundraising efforts. Your donations and support mean the world to us and we are grateful to have so many people joining us on our journey.

Product updates

We’re making cryptocurrencies the new normal. With the Zumo app, using smart money is now as easy as putting the kettle on.

2020 was full of innovative features and exciting updates based on your valuable feedback. Here are some of the most notable product developments.

GBP wallet

In July 2020 we announced support for our GBP (Pound Sterling) wallet, which allows users to add GBP funds to their Zumo wallet. Then, in August, we added Exchange Functionality, which enabled our users to exchange between GBP, Bitcoin and Ethereum and withdraw GBP to their bank account.

Zumo is proud to be working with Modulr, a fintech scale-up that provides the underlying infrastructure for our GBP payments. By offering GBP functionality to users we hope to make the process of buying, exchanging and selling cryptocurrencies even easier than before.

Have you used our GBP wallet? If so we’d love to hear your feedback at hello@zumo.money!

Price alerts

Exchange Price Alerts is another feature we were very excited to announce last year, as it was one of our most requested features from our app users.

This feature alerts users when the price of Bitcoin or Ether reaches a certain level, meaning that you can rest easy having bought or sold cryptocurrencies on Zumo knowing that you will be automatically notified when your desired target is reached.

Smartfolio

Zumo Smartfolio was announced last month and this newest feature makes it more simple than ever to see how much gain, or loss, you have made on your cryptocurrency holdings over time. Scores are calculated by matching a user’s buying positions with their sells, providing insights into potentially profitable exchange opportunities.

Zumo Smartfolio has been designed to ensure that users can view their data easily and intuitively; the feature lets users track price movements over various timeframes from one day to all-inclusive.

As we start 2021 we’re very excited to unveil more innovative features that help users to take control of their funds like never before. Keep an eye on the blog for more awesome updates!

User incentives

A product is only as good as its user base. Our users mean a lot to us and at Zumo we want to reward people for joining us on our quest to make smart money available to everyone.

We announced various reward programmes and incentives in 2020 and gave our users the opportunity to earn both traditional money and cryptocurrency for spreading the word of Zumo via social media and much more.

Smart money for everyone

The Smart Money For Everyone campaign was our biggest marketing push to date and saw Zumo take to the streets of Scotland with some eye-popping digital advertising appearing in prime sites across Edinburgh and Glasgow.

This campaign ran alongside a giveaway that offered participants a chance to win £500 worth of Bitcoin,

#Coveryourcoffee

Cryptocurrencies are steadily making their way into the mainstream and you can now use them to purchase everything from booking a holiday to buying a coffee.

Our #Coveryourcoffee campaign back in July helped everyone to do just that — we gave 0.02 ETH (roughly £5 at the time and now worth over £10! ) to anyone who successfully signed up to the Zumo app, which they could use to buy their morning latte on the way to work!

This year will see even more incentives and rewards for both existing and new Zumo users, so be sure to follow our social media channels to stay updated!

Team expansion

We welcomed several very talented individuals to the Zumo team last year and, besides adding to our already concrete team of women in tech, we also strengthened our Operations, Marketing, Compliance and Support teams.

Operations

Dagmara Aldridge joined Zumo as the company’s first Chief Operating Officer (COO), after a 15 year career across payments, financial services and FinTech. Dagmara previously worked in various leadership roles with Valitor, Travis Perkins and Barclaycard.

Marketing

We also welcomed Amelie Arras to Zumo’s Marketing department last year as the new Marketing Director. Amelie was recently celebrated in the Fintech Time’s ‘Rising Women in Crypto Power List’ and she has seen first-hand how cryptocurrencies can benefit communities across the globe. Amelie was also the first woman to travel the world using only Bitcoin for payments.

Compliance

Q4 saw a flurry of hires at Zumo and Piette Cyrus was one of them, becoming Zumo’s newest Compliance Associate. Before joining Zumo, Piette specialised in onboarding and compliance checks for international Fintech clients. Piette’s most recent role was with Zumo partner company Modulr as a Risk and Compliance Analyst.

Support

As our user base and community grew throughout 2020 we added Angela Stevenson to the Zumo Customer Support team. Angela has over 27 years of experience in providing top tier support and has set up efficient outsourcing solutions in Canada, Cyprus, India and Romania.

This year will undoubtedly see more incredibly talented and driven individuals join the Zumo roster. If you want to send an open application or know someone who would make a great addition to the Zumo team, please email us at hello@zumo.money

2021 and forward

As Bitcoin smashes through all-time highs and institutions, governments and banks everywhere continue to warm more and more to the thought of cryptocurrencies being the future of money, we couldn’t be more excited for this year and beyond.

We’re on a mission to knock down the outdated barriers that only serve to benefit the 1% and prevent the other 99% from taking true control of their money. We want to offer financial inclusion to the world through the use of cryptocurrencies and we think we’re doing pretty well so far (even if we say so ourselves!)

Thanks for believing in Zumo and for joining us on this once in a lifetime journey to reshape the future of money as we know it.

The Zumo team will continue to work hard this year spreading awareness, educating the world about the power of digital currencies and designing and implementing innovative features to make Zumo the go-to place to buy, sell, send, spend and store cryptocurrencies.

That’s all for now!