Payments group 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 and works with exchanges including Coinbase and FTX.

“We’re still in ‘chapter zero’ of our journey,” said Pousaz, who added that the valuation “will also fuel our efforts to unlock the enormous untapped opportunity ahead”.

Pousaz said last year that if the company was likely to list, it would do so in the US.

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. Its partners include Pizza Hut, Netflix and H&M.

Last year it hired Céline Dufétel, a top executive from 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.