KOHO Financial has raised C$130 million in an all-equity Series E at a C$1.33 billion post-money valuation, making the Toronto-based fintech Canada’s newest unicorn — and the latest data point in a pattern now visible on three continents: neobanks are done renting bank infrastructure and are buying their way into the regulated core. Mercury just paired a $200 million round with a cleared OCC national bank charter in the US, Bunq has filed for a Mexican banking licence, and Riverty took a Luxembourg licence for embedded finance. KOHO’s round, announced June 11, 2026, is the Canadian chapter of the same story: the capital is explicitly the base it needs to become a federally regulated Schedule 1 bank.
The round was led into unicorn territory by new investors Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, Baltimore-based Savano Capital and Shopify Chief Executive Officer Tobi Lütke investing personally, alongside existing backers Portage, BDC Capital, the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan, Drive Capital and Eldridge, according to BetaKit. The valuation steps up from C$800 million previously, with total funding now at C$507 million (FinSMES). The business behind the markup: 2.5 million clients, up from one million in late 2023, roughly C$250 million in annual revenue growing 50% year-over-year, and an average customer using three KOHO products.
The competitive read-through runs straight through Questrade, the only recent precedent for a Canadian challenger winning a Schedule 1 licence — a process that took six years before completing in 2025. KOHO began its own pursuit five years ago, went public with it in 2024, and hired David Merriby as chief compliance and risk officer in March 2026 specifically to land it. Chief Executive Officer Daniel Eberhard says the company is in “the final stages” of approval, per Finextra. Canada’s incumbent Big Six banks, who hold roughly 90% of domestic deposits, have so far not had to respond to a licensed digital-native competitor at scale; a KOHO approval changes that calculus more than any funding round.
“It’s nice validation… But there’s much more work in front of us than behind us,” said Daniel Eberhard, Chief Executive Officer at KOHO (BetaKit). Adam Felesky, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Portage, added that “Koho continues to build a product that millions of Canadians use to manage their daily financial lives.”
Why the licence matters more than the unicorn badge is a balance-sheet question. As a non-bank, KOHO funds its products through partners and pays for the privilege; as a Schedule 1 bank it can take insured deposits directly and lend against them — the economics that let Klarna fund 91% of its loan book from customer deposits while hitting $1 billion in quarterly revenue. The same logic drove Mercury’s $200 million raise alongside its OCC national bank charter in May, and it is why Bunq is shopping for a Mexican banking licence rather than another BaaS partnership. Deposit funding is the cheapest capital in finance, and the licence is the toll gate.
What happens next is concentrated in Ottawa rather than on the cap table. If the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) clears KOHO on anything like the company’s “final stages” framing, expect two follow-on effects: a repricing of other Canadian fintechs that remain stuck in partner-bank dependency, and renewed secondary-market appetite of the kind Revolut is currently testing with its reported $100 billion secondary. If approval slips toward the six-year Questrade timeline instead, the C$130 million becomes runway rather than regulatory capital — and the unicorn valuation will need the lending book, not the licence, to carry it.
This article is informational analysis only and is not financial, investment, or trading advice. Company valuations and private-market figures reflect the cited sources as of publication and may change. Do your own research before making any business or investment decision.
Rick Steves
Rick Steves has seen business and economics through many lenses. He joined the financial services industry in 2009, and has been a financial journalist since 2011. He holds a degree in Business Administration and has experience producing real-time news, from both buy-side and sell-side, as well as for retail traders, brokers and service providers. Steves' work has appeared in a variety of online publications including FX Street, NewsBTC, FinanceFeeds, and The Industry Spread. Rick has great interest in the dynamics of the trading industry. The never-ending clash between technology, economics, regulation, and more importantly, the people.
