London-based fintech company GoCardless which’s capitalising on the emerging ‘Open banking’ trend is now one step closer to unicorn status, thanks to the digital payment boom amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Raised £70 million funding
The Google Alphabet-backed company has raised $95 million (approx £70 million) in a Series F funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures, valuing the firm at over $970 million (approx £713 million). It brings the total amount raised to $240 million (approx £176 million).
Hiroki Takeuchi, CEO, and co-founder of GoCardless says: “This funding round demonstrates the strength of the business and the confidence both our customers and investors have in GoCardless. We’re incredibly proud to have seen continued business growth in such challenging times, and to have been able to continue supporting our customers – helping them stay in control of their payments and cash flow.”
How will the funding be used?
The UK company will use the funding to accelerate its open banking strategy and its offering into the adjacent e-commerce market to launch a simple and secure way of making bank-to-bank payments as a lower-cost alternative to cards.
Hiroki Takeuchi adds, “We believe that open banking is set to disrupt the payment landscape by introducing new, simpler, and more secure ways of making bank-to-bank payments that will compete with the traditional card networks. Our investment in open banking innovation will create a uniquely valuable payment offering – continuing to provide our customers with the best way to collect recurring payments.”
Recurring payments platform
Founded in 2011 by Hiroki Takeuchi, and Matt Robinson, GoCardless aims to take the pain out of getting paid for businesses with recurring revenue. As a result, the company has built a proprietary tech platform with the sole purpose of facilitating the way in which recurring payments are collected.
46% YoY growth
The company processes $18 billion+ (approx £13 billion+) of payments annually across more than 30 countries. Notably, GoCardless has witnessed a 46% YoY growth in revenue despite the challenging economic environment.
The firm now has 55,000 customers, and partnered with more than 150 billing and subscription software partners globally, including Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, Zuora, and Salesforce.
Investors
GoCardless is headquartered in the UK with additional offices in Australia, France, Germany, and the United States. The company is backed by the world’s leading investors including Adams Street Partners, Accel Partners, Balderton Capital, Alphabet, Notion Capital, Passion Capital, Salesforce Ventures Y Combinator.
Matt Harris, the partner at Bain Capital Ventures, said: “We’re excited by GoCardless’ enormous growth potential in a massive and largely untapped market. In particular, we’re seeing strong early results as GoCardless moves beyond SMBs to serve mid-market and enterprise customers and expands its international footprint to address a growing need for bank debit processing. We have enormous confidence in Hiroki and the entire GoCardless team to build a multi-billion dollar company that will redefine the payments industry.”
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