Checkout.com hits $40bn valuation after funding round

Payments company Checkout.com has raised $1bn in a funding round that makes it the UK’s most valuable private tech company.

The London-based group almost tripled its valuation to $40bn in just a year as US investment group Tiger Global, asset manager Franklin Templeton and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC backed the low-profile company.

The ballooning valuation for Checkout.com, which was founded a decade ago to help retailers process online payments, surpasses the $33bn that investors gave UK digital bank Revolut last July.

Investors’ appetite for payments companies has been turbocharged by the coronavirus pandemic as consumers were forced to shop online. Founded by Guillaume Pousaz, Checkout.com has since expanded into the crypto industry as a payment processor for exchanges including Coinbase and FTX.

“We’ve tripled volumes [of transactions] three years in a row,” Pousaz told the Financial Times. “This funding round validates our ability to execute and our ambitions to be a market leader and long-term winner.”

The 40-year old Swiss-born entrepreneur also said he is not in a hurry to take the company public.

“We know that we’re going to have a long life in the public markets,” he said, “but there is no rush to go.” He said last year that the US was the most likely destination for an initial public offering.

The company, which has 19 offices including in the US, Germany, Brazil, Singapore and Pakistan, said it has been profitable for several years but declined to give details.

Valued at just $5.5bn in the middle of 2020, Checkout.com is the latest payments group to ride the wave of investor interest. Digital payments company Stripe was valued at $95bn last March, while Swedish “buy now, pay later” provider Klarna secured a valuation of $45.6bn in June.

Checkout.com first took outside investment in 2019 when it relied on a handshake to seal a funding round that valued it at $2bn.

“As a long-term investor, we are impressed by the company’s product innovation and customer-centric approach,” said Choo Yong Cheen, chief investment officer for private equity at GIC.

Checkout.com said it aimed to roll out new features for payments on online marketplaces later this year. It provides real-time payment processing, transaction data and fraud prevention and counts Pizza Hut, Netflix and H&M among its customers.

Pousaz also said he expects the company to have a role in Web3, a movement that envisions the future of the internet in which digital assets play a key part.

“There’s never been more venture capital money and smarter minds going into Web3 than right now,” he said. “Usually when there is money and smart minds, good things happen.”

Pousaz previously worked at a Californian payments processor and founded fintech start-ups NetMerchant and Opus Payments.

As the company has grown, Checkout.com sought to bring in outside executives. The company last year hired Céline Dufétel, previously chief financial officer at asset manager T Rowe Price, as its new head of finance. It also recruited Meron Colbeci, previously head of consumer product management at Meta’s digital wallet Novi, as chief product officer.