CEO Brett King (pictured) claimed that Moven, the US mobile banking start-up he founded, cost only a fraction of better funded rivals to set up.

In a blog, King said many competitors’ initial product launches required a minimum of $10 millon, or as much as $300 million, to get off the ground.

By contrast, Moven cost only $4.5 million, said King.

His comments came as the startup announced $8 million in Series A investment led by SBT Venture Capital and also including Route 66 Ventures, Standard Bank and several angel investors.

Moven exited its beta phase in March 2014 and opened its service to the public. Since then it has attracted 10,000 active users, said King in an interview with Wired.

The additional $8 million will be used for two purposes. Firstly to invest in the mobile bank and create a benchmark for what King dubs the ‘downloadable smart bank account’. The idea is to follow up on the hundreds of thousands of prospects and emails built up in recent months.

Second is international expansion through partnerships based on licensing deals, starting in Canada and New Zealand.