Balderton leads $7m round for GoCardless

Ellie Pullen
28 January 2014

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Balderton Capital has led a $7m series-B round for GoCardless, a London-based B2B online direct debit platform, alongside existing backers Accel Partners and Passion Capital.

GoCardless will use the fresh funding to bolster its engineering team, in order to scale the company's technology for its new customers. The company also plans on targeting larger businesses throughout 2014 and expanding across the rest of Europe.

The deal is the latest in a recent string of investments in the fintech space, which gained serious traction throughout the latter half of 2013.

Previous funding
In February 2012, Accel and Passion injected $1.5m into GoCardless. The company is then believed to have received a further $3.3m in series-A funding from the two firms in April 2013.

GoCardless also took part in Y Combinator's 2011 summer programme in Silicon Valley.

Company
Founded in 2011, GoCardless is headquartered in London and currently employs 23 staff. The company provides a platform designed to simplify the process of accepting recurring online direct debit payments for merchants.

The company claims to have experienced a growth rate of 700% in 2013 and says it now processes more than $200m in transactions per year. Customers include Greater Anglia Trains, Zest Digital and Ask Driving School.

People
Hiroki Takeuchi is the CEO of GoCardless and founded the company alongside Tom Blomfield and Matt Robinson. Balderton partner Tim Bunting will take up a position on GoCardless's board of directors following the deal. Accel partner Sven Schmidt already sits on the company's board alongside Passion's Robert Dighero, who holds an observer position.