I burned €500,000 building a neobank for immigrants
I burned €500,000 building a neobank for immigrants.
Not advice. Just a founder’s confession.
When I moved to Portugal, I couldn’t open a bank account.
No local credit history. No proof of address.
It took weeks, not days.
I thought: This is a massive problem, I can fix it.
That’s how Relocare was born.
We built a neobank for immigrants:
- Local IBAN
- Credit card
- MBWay integration
On launch:
- 13,000 waitlist
- €500,000 invested
Tech worked perfectly, but the reality killed us:
- Fraud started with the 5th card.
- BaaS partners saw immigrants as “high risk”.
- Users churned after 6 months (once they got a local bank account).
- Wise & Revolut were “good enough” alternatives.
- Our LTV/CAC collapsed: expected 3:1 → real 0.5:1.
Game over.
Lessons learned:
- Don’t build on temporary pain. Demand disappears.
- Market size ≠ opportunity. Only 10,15% of TAM may be real.
- “Good enough” competitors will crush you unless you’re 10x better.
- Don’t ignore regulation & risk appetite,it can kill your runway.
- Cashflow > vanity metrics. Pitch applause means nothing.
- Failure isolates. But it doesn’t have to.
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