Fintech firm Checkout.com is Europe’s top unicorn, valued at $15 billion

LONDON – Online payments company Checkout.com is now Europe’s top tech unicorn.

Checkout.com announced Tuesday that it had raised $450 million in an investment led by Tiger Global Management — which is also an investor in rival payments giant Stripe — bringing its valuation to $15 billion has increased.

That’s nearly triple the $5.5 billion that Checkout.com was worth in a $150 million funding round nearly seven months ago. It also makes Checkout.com the fourth most valuable privately held fintech company in the world.

Checkout.com’s platform integrates electronic payments, analytics and fraud monitoring into one platform. Headquartered in London, the company processes payments for large clients such as Pizza Hut, H&M and Farfetch, as well as fintechs such as Coinbase, Klarna and Revolut.

The company aims to be a leader in the $2 trillion payments industry. It competes with US company Stripe and Dutch rival Adyen. Investors are betting these companies will continue to benefit from rapid growth in digital payments and e-commerce, which has only been accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic.

“No one expected at the beginning of the year that 2020 would be like this,” Guillaume Pousaz, CEO and founder of Checkout.com, said in a November interview with CNBC.

Checkout.com has raised a staggering $830 million over the past two years. With another $450 million in the bank, the company plans to expand further into the United States with a newly opened office in New York and another office in Denver. A US push would see Checkout.com step up its competition with San Francisco-based Stripe.

The company currently employs 1,000 people worldwide and expects to hire an additional 700 this year. Pousaz said Checkout.com is now mimicking Stripe when it comes to considering important hires. Stripe poached General Motors Chief Financial Officer Dhivya Suryadevara last year, hinting at plans for an eventual IPO.

“We take the Stripe approach to poaching people from the very best companies in the world,” Pousaz told CNBC. He added that Checkout.com will soon be announcing two significant C-suite hires with experience at leading global companies.

“I spend a lot of time thinking about not only the headcount of the company, but also the right leadership at the top,” said Pousaz.

Checkout.com has gone from relative obscurity to one of the most valuable private technology companies in the world. Founded in 2012, the company first tapped outside investors to raise $230 million in 2019 at a $2 billion valuation. A year later, it had tripled in market value to $5.5 billion.

The company still has some catching up to do when it comes to reaching the ratings of its payment peers. Stripe was valued at $36 billion in its most recent private funding round and is reportedly hoping to achieve market value of up to $100 billion in a new investment deal. Stripe declined to comment.

Adyen is now valued at over $65 billion. Shares in the Amsterdam-based company have roughly quadrupled since going public in 2018.

Checkout.com is one of a rare breed of fintechs that have been consistently profitable for years. The company told CNBC that revenue from its European operations nearly doubled to $146.4 million in 2019, from $74.8 million a year earlier.

The company’s accounts were marked overdue on the UK registrar’s website but were filed in time to meet new government allowances due to Covid-19. The company has tripled its transaction volume in three consecutive years.

Given these metrics, you’d think Checkout.com would be a prime candidate for an IPO. Pousaz says the long-term goal is an IPO, but added that there is no pressure from investors to do so.

“We’re going to be a public company,” he told CNBC. “Given the size of the company, there is currently no other alternative.”