Checkout.com, the UK-founded payments platform, has landed a $5.5 billion valuation in its latest $150 million funding round, making it one of Europe’s most valuable start-ups alongside fintechs Revolut and Klarna.
“Checkout is one of those very few companies that managed to strengthen its position during [COVID-19]”
Led by Coatue Management, the Series B round began in May when the firm approached eight investors and finalised the deal just one month later after receiving six offers.
The fresh capital injection has nearly tripled Checkout.com’s valuation and arrives roughly one year after its $230 million Series A in May 2019 which had pegged its valuation at $2 billion.
Existing investors in the round included Insight Partners, DST Global, Blossom Capital, and Singapore’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, GIC.
The company is now considering a US listing according to its CEO Guillaume Pousaz, who told the Financial Times it has held discussions about the process with a board member from venture firm Insight Partners.
“If I list, I will list in the US,” says Pousaz, who does not mention a time scale for going public. “It seems likely that we would go there.”
Pousaz says major investor Coatue would not receive a board seat as part of the deal, but the fintech is looking to add a host of new directors over the next 12 months.
With customers like Grab, Deliveroo and Revolut, Checkout.com processes digital payments and is licensed in the UK, France and Singapore. It supports debit and credit cards, as well as the likes of Apple and Google Pay, Klarna, PayPal and Alipay.
The start-up, like many paytechs in the ecommerce space, has benefited from the rise in digital payments during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Checkout is one of those very few companies that managed to strengthen its position during [COVID-19],” says Blossom Capital founder Ophelia Brown, one of the company’s investors in the round. Profitable since 2012, Checkout.com says it now turns over annual revenues “well above” $100 million – more than doubling in the past year.
Fellow fintechs in the digital payments space have seen jumps in their valuations. San Francisco-based competitor Stripe landed a notably larger $36 billion valuation in April, making it the most valued start-up in the US.
In February, Checkout.com bought French fintech start-up ProcessOut – the firm which brands itself as a ‘payment-team-as-a-service’. The small 14-person team, which has assessed more than $20 billion transactions in the last year to help buyers find the best acceptance rates, joined the fintech to make better use of the electronic money institution license it bagged from French regulators last September.
Read next: UK paytech Checkout.com buys French start-up ProcessOut
