Cino—a real-time shared payment app that finally lets people pay together in a seamless, single transaction—announced it has raised €3.5 million in seed funding led by Balderton Capital. Connect Ventures and leading angels, including Barney Hussey-Yeo (founder of Cleo), also participated. This funding will support Cino’s launch in the UK, which already has a growing waitlist, and continued growth across Europe.
Launched in 2023 by CEO Elena Churilova and COO Lina Saleh, Cino is headed by product and design experts — Elena, who brings experience from Bumble and Booking.com, and Lina, with a background in human-centered design from Cornell University. Cino is the first solution that lets people truly pay together – charging everyone their share in real time, directly from their bank account at the point of checkout.
It was built for how Gen Z expects to pay with friends and family – instantly and effortlessly together without financial awkwardness – and is designed to be as social as the experiences it enables. And as a generation that thrives on connection, Gen Z needs their financial tools to be dynamic, adaptable, and integrated. Cino meets that need, offering a bank-agnostic solution that works across the EU and soon the UK.
By transforming shared payments from the ground up with Gen Z’s needs at its core, Cino makes spending together as seamless as paying alone. It does not just eliminate the need for reimbursements and difficult conversations; it prevents them from ever happening.
Users can securely connect their card to the Cino app, get a virtual card, and join shared payment groups where they set adjustable custom split ratios. And any group member can pay for anything, wherever Visa is accepted, and everyone’s share is automatically deducted at checkout. Cino is also bank agnostic; people no longer need to use the same bank to make shared payments or share bank details. All payments appear in the group feed for full transparency, and users can join or leave payment groups at any time.
So Cino takes the hassle out of shared payments – no follow-ups, no tracking, no payment links, no sharing bank details, no wallets, and no pre-loaded funds.
Cino is solving a significant shift in sharing and settling costs that arise from new priorities and realities. Gen Z has been raised on digital wallets and banking apps, but splitting costs remains awkward. Living in shared places for longer, splitting utilities and grocery bills, younger people must work hard to balance budgets in an unpredictable economy. Even within close relationships, joint bank accounts are becoming less common.
Existing bill splitting apps were designed to manage debt. And their process – deciding what to input, how to divide it, and when to request repayment – creates angst and negative sentiment around shared expenses. This is a significant problem, as evidenced by many ended friendships, and a third of Gen Z couples have split over money disputes.
Cino’s popularity surges as users share the app across social networks and by referring their friends. And its seen 100% month-on-month growth in Finland and Italy and groups use Cino on average 17 times per month, spending up to €3,000. As active users usually make their first transaction within just hours of signing up and the company has a growing waitlist ahead of its UK launch later this year.
With this latest funding round, Cino will expand across Europe, launching new shared payment features and exploring new verticals, including B2B payments and rent.
KEY QUOTES:
“Fintech has always been one-dimensional but we are social creatures. Our payments should reflect how we actually spend money – together. Back in the cash days, it was simpler. Now that we’ve gone digital, payments need to evolve to keep up.
- Elena Churilova, co-founder and CEO of Cino
“For too long, people have accepted standard bill-splitting, debt tracking, and repayment requests as the only way to manage shared expenses – simply because there was no alternative. Cino’s viral growth demonstrates that there is an alternative which users love. We’re excited to support Elena and Lina as they redefine how money moves between people and groups.”
- Greta Anderson at Balderton Capital
