Amsterdam-based online payments processor Mollie becomes the third-largest FinTech unicorn in Europe after rival Checkout.com as it sealed a massive $800m financing round valuing the company at $6.5bn.
The round was led by funds managed by Blackstone Growth (BXG), Blackstone’s growth equity investing business and included EQT Growth, General Atlantic, HMI Capital and Alkeon Capital. TCV who led a €90m Series B investment in September 2020 also participated in the funding round.
The funding, which takes the total amount raised by the Dutch-headquartered company to $940m, comes after the firm became a unicorn in September last year, more than a decade after it was founded by Dutch entrepreneur Adriaan Mol in 2004.
The funding will fuel Mollie’s international expansion, team scaling and continued investment in product and engineering. It plans to continue investing in its technology platform and expanding its product portfolio beyond payments into financial services for SMEs. Mollie is also evaluating additional countries for expansion both within Europe and beyond. The company also is embarking on a big hiring push, taking its team of 480 to just under 800 in the next nine months.
The company originally got its start as a text messaging business, but soon pivoted to payments after trying to integrate its own system for clients to pay their invoices. Its solution provides a way for businesses to integrate payments into sites, documents and other services by way of an API.
Mollie serves more than 120,000 monthly active merchants of all sizes across the continent. In 2020, the firm processed more than €10bn in transactions and is on track to handle more than €20bn during 2021. Mollie counts Deliveroo, Gymshark, Wickey and Otrium as customers.
Mollie CEO Shane Happach said that, “In the three months since I joined the team we’ve achieved so much: making preparations for a full launch in the UK, driving 600% growth in Germany and hiring an impressive set of team members and executives.
“In bringing on BXG, we believe we have an investor who can help Mollie in our next phase of growth. The involvement of our new group of investors demonstrates confidence in Mollie’s growth, strategy and product set.”
Sharing the same confidence in the firm, Paul Morrissey who leads European investing for Blackstone Growth added, “Mollie is one of Europe’s most exciting high-growth businesses and is at the forefront of enabling next-generation payments for online SMEs across Europe. This investment underlines Blackstone’s confidence in Europe as a place for high-growth companies to thrive.”
Recently French President Emmanual Macron said he expects Europe to produce at least ten companies worth 100bn euros each by 2030. Given that European startups have raised 45.9bn euros so far this year, according to Dealroom data – surpassing total investment for all of 2020, it seems like it is achievable.
Competition in payments has intensified over the past decade. To add on, digital payments got a big boost from coronavirus lockdown restrictions as more retailers moved operations online with FinTech players like Stripe, Jack Dorsey’s Square and Netherlands-based Adyen all vying for a bigger share of the $2tn market.
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