GoCardless, a processor of recurring debit payments for more than 70,000 businesses worldwide, has secured a Series G funding round of $312 million at a valuation of $2.1 billion.
The investment is led by Permira and backed by new investor BlackRock Private Equity Partners
Since its last $95 million funding round in December 2020, the company’s valuation has more than doubled, while headcount has grown by 85%.
The company says it will use the funding to build on its open banking strategy, challenging the dominance of credit cards in instant payments by making bank-to-bank debit payments available as a lower-cost alternative to cards.
The firm says its Instant Bank Pay product has already helped thousands of merchants in the UK and Europe process millions of dollars’ worth of one-time payments. Both Klarna and PayPal have recently signed deals for GoCardless to serve as their account-to-account payment partner of choice.
Alberto Riva, principal at Permira, says: “We believe GoCardless is uniquely positioned to become a global champion in account-to-account payments through leveraging open banking. We are thrilled to back Hiroki (Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO) and his excellent team to continue innovating and offering best-in-class solutions that are cheaper, faster and a more secure way of collecting payments globally.”
With the round, GoCardless will also add further technology and payments expertise to its board, with Michael Rouse, former chief commercial officer at Klarna joining, and Koen Köppen, chief technology officer at Klarna and board member of Mollie, joining as an independent director.