UK FinTech GoCardless has secured its unicorn status after a $312m Series G pushed its valuation up to $2.1bn.
The investment was led by Permira and also saw participation from BlackRock Private Equity Partners. Since its last funding round in December 2020 – when it raised $95m in a Series F round – GoCardless’s valuation has more than doubled, while headcount has swelled by 85%.
As a part of the round, Michael Rouse – former CCO of Klarna – and current Klarna CTO Koen Köppen will join as a board member and independent director respectively.
GoCardless processes over $25bn in transactions every year and currently serves over 70,000 businesses worldwide such as Klarna, TripAdvisor and DocuSign.
Klarna recently chose GoCardless to offer bank debit payments to its US customers, while PayPal and GoCardless recently signed a strategic agreement which will see GoCardless become a direct debit partner for PayPal.
The company also previously launched Instant Bank Pay, which is a way to collect one-off bank-to-bank payments using open banking.
According to GoCardless, the funding will allow it to accelerate its growing footprint in the open banking space through new product and geographical expansion as it targets becoming the leading network globally for direct bank payments.
GoCardless co-founder and CEO Hiroki Takeuchi said, “The rise of open banking presents a once-in-a-generation shift, one that will change the way payments happen all over the world. I am delighted to have partners like Permira and BlackRock Private Equity Partners on board, with their global footprint and strong expertise in tech, to support us in building a direct bank payment network that lets payments flow freely, without cards, expiration dates or extra costs. I look forward to working with them and our new board members to accelerate the future development of GoCardless.”
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