Permira, Blackrock lead USD 312m round for GoCardless

The first close of USD 192m has completed, and the round is expected to fully close later in the year subject to regulatory approvals, according to a statement. 

Following this round, the UK-based unicorn will accelerate its growth plans in the open banking sector by expanding its product range and international expansion, according to a statement. GoCardless will also focus on recurring and one-time payments, and open its bank pay network to other payment service providers that are interested in using its platform.

GoCardless will further bolster its technology and payments expertise by adding new members to its board of directors, including former Klarna chief commercial officer Michael Rouse, and Koen Köppen, chief technology officer at Klarna and board member of Mollie, who will be joining as an independent director. Since the last funding round held in December 2020, the company's valuation has more than doubled, according to a statement.

JP Morgan acted as sole placement agent on this fundraise.

Permira has previously backed other businesses operating in the fintech space, including Klarna, Carta and Clearwater Analytics.

Permira backed the round from Permira Growth Opportunities II, which held a final close at USD 4bn in January 2022, according to Unquote Data. The fund has already backed four US-based companies: Carta, AllTrails, MParticle and Sysdig.

BlackRock has also previously backed Klarna. The GP declined to confirm which fund they are investing through but told Unquote that the acquisition will be made by funds and accounts managed by the GP. According to Unquote Data, the GP's latest fund is BlackRock Private Equity Opportunities ELTIF, which held a final close on GBP 600m.

Last year saw payment platforms like UK-based Worldremit, Rapyd and PPro raise significant rounds, as did Sweden-based Klarna.

Several unicorns have been created in recent years as a result of growth capital investments, including France-based online bank Qonto, which secured EUR 486m in a Series D led by Tiger Global and TCV to reach a valuation of EUR 4.4bn in January 2022. Another example, Mollie, is a Netherlands-based e-payments software developer that secured USD 800m in a Series C led by Blackstone Growth to achieve a valuation of USD 6.5bn in June 2021. Meanwhile, in the UK, cross-border payments platform Worldremit secured USD 29m in a Series E round to achieve a valuation of USD 5bn in August 2021.

Previous funding
GoCardless is no stranger to private capital and has over the years received backing form various institutional investors. In February 2012, the online payment platform received USD 1.5m from Accel Partners, Passion Capital and YCombinator, according to Crunchbase.

Existing investors led a USD 3.3m Series A in April 2013 for the company.

In January 2014, GoCardless secured USD 7m in a Series B round led by Balderton Capital.

Notion Capital and existing investors participated in a USD 13m round in March 2016.

In September 2017, the company received additional funding from Accel and existing investors in a USD 22.5m round.

Adam Street Partners, GV and Salesforce Ventures participated in a USD 75m Series E round alongside existing investors in February 2019.

In December 2020, Bain Capital led a USD 95m Series F round and then in February 2021 Hermes GPE backed the business in a Series F round for an undisclosed figure, according to Crunchbase. Reports at the time suggested the business was planning to raise about GBP 200m in a round that would give it unicorn status and it had retained JP Morgan to lead the round.

Company
GoCardless was founded in 2011 by Hiroki Takeuchi, Tom Blomfield and Matt Robinson. It is a UK-based global bank debit network facilitating account-to-account payments that can also take invoices, subscriptions, instalment payments and membership payments. The company processes more than USD 20bn in transactions a year.

The company has offices in London, Paris, Munich, Melbourne, San Francisco and New York City.

Klarna, a buy-now-pay-later platform, recently chose GoCardless to provide bank debit payments to its 21 million users in the US. Paypal has agreed to sign a strategic agreement with GoCardless to become its direct debit partner.

Customers include DocuSign, Her Majesty's Government, Tripadvisor and Guardian Media Group.

People
GoCardless – Hiroki Takeuchi (co-founder, CEO).
Permira – Alberto Riva (principal).

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Expansion
• UK / Ireland
• Technology
• Financials
• Venture
• Permira
• BlackRock
• United Kingdom