Chip has seen 4,240 people invest more than £2.5 million via Crowdcube to fuel the firm's progress.

The private funding round exceeded its £1 million target within hours, making it the largest equity crowdfund to be completed in the UK since the lockdown started.

The funds will be used to further accelerate Chip’s growth, including the launch of an FSCS-protected savings account through a partner bank, as well as to deliver new features to accommodate the changing behaviours of savers since the beginning of the pandemic.

The money management app's user base has increased over 40 per cent in the first three months of 2020, with the average amount put aside by savers each month increasing by 13 per cent.

In November, it raised £7.3 million to fund expansion, with £3.8 million crowdfunded by customers, and the remainder from angel investors.

Chip reported that ‘safety net fund’ has knocked ‘holiday’ off the top spot as the most popular goal set by savers since the outbreak started. Similarly, people are tapping into funds originally set aside for holidays, festivals and weddings and spending the money on supporting small businesses, purchasing homeschooling supplies and laptops.

Simon Rabin, chief executive and founder of Chip, said: “We've seen unprecedented growth during these difficult times, which demonstrates that Chip is incredibly useful for putting money aside for safety net and emergency funds - off the back of this growth, we wanted to share the opportunity with our investor community, and have been overwhelmed by their response."

Chip has over 10,000 shareholders from previous funding rounds with Crowdcube and has over 250,000 downloads. In March, the business received full Financial Conduct Authority authorisation, letting it launch interest bearing accounts and roll out ChipX to the entire user base.

Luke Lang, co-founder of Crowdcube, commented: “The raise with Chip shows that, despite the bigger economic turmoil, there is still an appetite from communities and everyday investors to support startup and scale-up businesses."

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