Whereas Venmo or Splitwise are effectively ‘tools’ debt collector, who require a person to pay a full bill and then request funds from others, nor has it cracked the separation of bills at the time of payment. The European beginning of CIO, which has come up with such a product, has now raised € 3.5 million in a round of seed led by Balderon Capital in London.
The real -time payment app allows a group to separate the bill and pay their share directly from any bank account or the portfolio they choose.
After coming out of Tallinn, Estonia, and operating in continental Europe since 2023, CIO will now use funds to expand to the UK
Guided by Ceo Elena Churilova (once of Bumble and Booking.com) and Coo Lina Saleh (former C-Cornell University), CIno seems to be waves among General Z, who do not like “financial difficulty” and among which shared bank accounts-to pay things like Dinosa.
To use CIO, users connect their card to the mobile app, where they receive a virtual card. They can then join joint payment groups, where they establish adjustable custom -sharing reports, such as those for a restaurant bill. Anydo member of the group can pay anything and the share of all is automatically descended to the crate, the company said.
All payments appear transparently to the group source, and users can be merged or left payment groups at any time.
Currently, all users should not be a cyno user for the app to work, but the company is also building a new feature where you can join directly through Apple Pay or Google Pay.
Cino claims there is 100% month growth over months in markets such as Finland and Italy, and says its customers use the app 17 times a month, on average, spending up to € 3,000.
“The way to set it up is similar to how WhatsApp works,” explained Elena Chhurilova, co -founder of Cina and CEO of CIno, on a call with Techcrunch. “You just create groups, and then we release virtual cards. You can add people, remove people from that virtual card and also change the ratio of separation.”
Cyo’s journey began when Churilova was working in Bumble and began sharing spending with colleagues: “I tried every single means there to understand how to make my weekends not in accounting exercises,” she said. “Then I just had this as a moment of thinking, like,“ Why are no one building a way to pay together? “”
The app also uses the network effect on the scale, as any new cyno user can invite the other 2-4 free within the first six months of the union.
“For a long time, people have accepted standard invoicing, debt tracking and repayment requirements as the only way to manage common expenses-just because there were no alternatives,” Investor Cino Greta Anderson said in Balderon Capital in a statement. “Cyno viral growth shows that there is an alternative that users love.”
Connect Ventures and Tera Ventures also participated in this round, along with angels, including Barney Hussey-Yeo (founder of Cleo).
