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Dmitry Prostov

I built and shut down a €500K neobank for immigrants in Portugal. Here's a post-mortem.

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Background: I spent €500K building a neobank for immigrants in Portugal in 2021. We went from 13,000 waitlist signups to 5,000 active users, then had to shut down after 6 months.

I've written a detailed post-mortem [link], but I'm here to answer specific questions about what went wrong.


Some key points to start discussion:

Technical:

  • Built on top of a BaaS provider

  • Full KYC/AML implementation for high-risk customers

  • Mobile-first architecture

  • AI-powered document processing system (now repurposed as B2B product)

Business:

  • Real unit economics: LTV/CAC was 0.53:1 vs projected 3:1

  • Customer lifetime: 6 months vs projected 12 months

  • Monthly subscription: €8 vs projected €12.5

  • Competition with Wise/Revolut

I'm happy to share detailed insights about:

  • Technical architecture decisions

  • Regulatory compliance implementations

  • Real numbers and metrics

  • Partnership challenges

  • Post-shutdown pivot to B2B

I'll be here for the next few hours answering questions. Ask me anything about the technical or business aspects of this failure.


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steve beyatte

Is it fair to say that your main lessons were:

  • Avoid building a business around temporary pain points

  • Make sure TAM calculations reflect real market opportunities

  • Understand that "good enough" solutions (like Wise) can be your biggest competitors

Is that right?


Also- do you think there are still viable opportunities in consumer-facing neobanks, or has the market consolidated too much? Which areas (credit, compliance, payments) do you see as most promising right now?

Rajiv Ayyangar

It's always interesting to read a thoughtful post-mortem on a startup. I wrote one on my last startup here: (What happened to Tandem)


This part caught my eye:
"We needed €10M+ to build a sustainable lending mode"

As founders, it's always tempting to think that if we had more money we'd be able to make the product work. But often it comes down to whether people fundamentally want the product and need the product - whether there's a market for it. Given the size of the Portuguese market and the fact that you're specifically addressing immigrants there who, as you observed, have built-in churn when they leave. Do you still believe in hindsight that enough funds could have opened up a venture-scale market? Or do you think maybe this was never a venture-scale market?

Tania Bell

@rajiv_ayyangar perhaps could have used PT (Portugal) as a testing ground and then expanded to other countries?