TransferWise founder Taavet Hinrikus invests in fintech chatbot Cleo

Cleo, the London-based fintech that offers an AI-powered chatbot as a replacement for your banking apps, continues to put together an impressive list of backers. The startup's early investors already include Entrepreneur First, Moonfruit founder Wendy Tan White, Skype founder Niklas Zennström, Wonga founder Errol Damelin, and LocalGlobe, the seed VC firm founded by father and son duo Robin and Saul Klein, amongst others. Now TechCrunch can reveal that TransferWise founder Taavet Hinrikus has become a Cleo investor and advisor. In a call with Hinrikus last week, he explained that the investment came about after he kept hearing of Cleo and its co-founder and CEO Barney Hussey-Yeo from various contacts in the London startup scene. The pair met up around 6 months ago and after learning more about the company's vision, the TransferWise founder wanted in. "The guy is very low-key, hands on building, [and] focussed on solving a customer problem," says Hinrikus, "so I was really impressed with that and said, 'hey, if I can join the party, I'd love to'.