Paytechs Checkout.com and Global Processing Services Grab Funding

The two London-based fintech companies have plenty of money for their latest ambitions.

London-based payments companies Checkout.com and Global Processing Services have both picked up some powerful fintech funding boosts.

URL-obsessed firm Checkout.com has raised $1 billion (£728 million) in a Series D amid its major US market push. The payments processor has now reached a $40 billion (£29 billion) valuation, raising a total of $1.8 billion (£1.3 billion) to date.

Global Processing Services (GPS) has revealed the closing and upsizing of its latest fundraise at over $400 million (£291 million). Temasek, the investment company headquartered in Singapore, and MissionOG, a US-based growth equity firm, joined the $300 million+ (£218 million+) initial round (which was reported in October), co-led by growth investors Advent International – through Advent Tech and affiliate Sunley House Capital – and Viking Global Investors.

Three-dom at Checkout.com 

Primary investors in Checkout.com’s round include Altimeter, Dragoneer, Franklin Templeton, GIC, Insight Partners, the Qatar Investment Authority, Tiger Global, the Oxford Endowment Fund and an unnamed west coast mutual fund manager

The funding will be used in three key areas – the US market, a marketplaces solution launch and for Web3 ambitions. The company expects its North American employee base to grow by 200% this year.

Checkout.com offers a full-stack online platform for large global enterprise merchants and has been profitable for several years. Clients include Netflix, Farfetch, Grab, NetEase, Pizza Hut, Shein, Siemens and Sony; fintech unicorns such as Klarna, Qonto, Revolut and Zepz (formerly called WorldRemit); and crypto players like Coinbase, Crypto.com, FTX and MoonPay.

Life is sweet for the fintech entity. Over the past year Checkout.com opened new offices in six countries across four continents. It also expanded its executive leadership team in the US and Europe with a new CFO, CHRO, CMO, CPO, CRO and CTO – and grew its overall employee base to more than 1,700 people in 19 countries.

“At our core, we help enterprise merchants to navigate the complexity of moving money around the world, whether in fiat currency or bridging the gap to Web3,” explains Checkout.com Founder and CEO, Guillaume Pousaz.

After testing with merchants over the past several months, Checkout.com plans to launch its solution to service marketplaces & payment facilitators (payfacs) later this year. This will expand the company’s capability to service payments within online marketplaces.

These new solutions will comprise identity verification technologies, split payments and Treasury as a Service, as well as the existing capabilities of Payouts – which Checkout.com launched last year to help merchants send funds to cards and bank accounts globally via a single integration.

The firm is well aware of the adoption of emerging technologies like cryptocurrencies and NFTs, and has plans in the Web3 space.

Its modular products and platform are used by fan token providers like Socios.com and blockchain-based wallets like Novi from Meta. In addition, the company is privately beta-testing a solution to settle transactions for merchants using digital currencies.

GPS Headed in Right Direction

GPS sees itself as an API-first payment technology platform, which enables card programmes for fintechs, digital challenger banks and embedded finance providers. GPS’ technology is used by such names as Revolut, Curve, Starling Bank, Zilch, WeLab Bank and Paidy (which PayPal said it will buy last year).

Through GPS’ cloud platform, its customers and partners can design, launch and manage card programmes across 48 countries. To date, GPS has issued over 190 million physical and virtual cards, and last year processed more than 1.3 billion transactions.

The company plans expansion across Europe, APAC and MENA, and new product and technology developments. Concurrent with the investment closing, Gene Lockhart, Chair and General Partner of MissionOG, has been named as the new Chair of GPS.

Joanne Dewar, Chief Executive Officer at GPS, explains: “The expertise that our new partners bring to GPS will be invaluable as we enter our next phase of geographic expansion and technology innovation.”

Antony Peyton
Antony Peyton
Antony Peyton is the Editor of eWeek UK. He has 18 years' journalism and writing experience. His career has taken him to China, Japan and the UK - covering tech, fintech and business. Follow on Twitter @TonyFintech.
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