New funding pushes London fintech Checkout.com to $5.5bn valuation

Checkout.com said on Monday that it had raised an additional $150m (£121m) in funding, almost tripling the valuation of the London-based payments startup to $5.5bn.

The startup, which processes payments for behemoths like Adidas, Virgin Active, Deliveroo, and EasyGroup, said that the investment will bring the cash on its balance sheet to over $300m.

The round of funding was led by New York technology-focused hedge fund Coatue. Existing investors Insight Partners, DST Global, Blossom Capital, and the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund also participated.

Despite being eight years old, this is only the second time the company has sought investment from outside backers. Checkout.com previously raised a record-breaking $230m in April 2019, when it was valued at $2bn.

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Unlike most fintech firms, Checkout.com is profitable, and has experienced blockbuster revenue growth every year since it was founded by CEO Guillaume Pousaz in 2012 — two factors that allows it to command its huge valuation.

The company said on Monday that it had added fintech startups Revolut, Robinhood, and Klarna to its list of clients in the past 12 months, and that online transaction numbers have surged by 250% in the same period.

Checkout.com’s European business made a profit of $2.4m in 2018 on sales of nearly $75m — a near 60% increase on the firm’s 2017 revenue in the region.

While the company does not disclose figures for its business outside Europe, Checkout.com says its revenue growth elsewhere is similar.

Checkout.com is often mentioned in the same breath as Stripe, the $35bn San Francisco-based payments firm that was founded by two Irish brothers.

While Stripe markets itself as the solution for web developers and startups, Checkout.com has instead built an offering for much larger customers with huge trading volumes.

But Checkout.com has closer competitors, such as Adyen (ADYEN.AS), an Amsterdam-based firm valued at almost $40bn.

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Both firms proclaim to offer one-stop-shop payments systems that allow major merchants to accept debit and credit card payments using the same set-up in any country.

CEO and founder Guillaume Pousaz said that he was “thrilled” to receive investment from Coatue.

“As meaningful investors in late-stage tech companies such as Instacart, DoorDash, Bytedance and Chime they bring a wealth of experience in building world-class businesses driven by operational excellence,” he said.

The company said it will use some of the funding to develop “innovative” products, such as a planned advanced payouts solution.