GoCardless, a leading fintech in direct bank payment solutions, today announced that it has secured a Series G funding round of USD312 million, making it the latest European and UK tech unicorn at a valuation of USD2.1 billion. The investment is led by Permira, which brings significant experience in backing best-in-class payments and financial software businesses including Klarna, Clearwater Analytics and Carta. New investor BlackRock Private Equity Partners also joined the round. The funding will allow GoCardless to accelerate its growing footprint in the open banking space through both product and geographical expansion as it targets becoming the world’s leading network for direct bank payments. GoCardless processes more than $25bn in transactions per year and serves over 70,000 businesses around the world, including DocuSign, Klarna, TripAdvisor and Epson. Since its last funding round in December 2020, the company’s valuation has more than doubled, while headcount has grown by 85%. GoCardless accelerated its investment in open banking product development and launched Instant Bank Pay, a new way to collect one-off bank-to-bank payments using open banking. Since then, it has already helped thousands of merchants in the UK and Europe process millions of dollars’ worth of one-time payments.
GoCardless is a global leader in direct bank payment solutions, making it easy to collect both recurring and one-off payments directly from customers’ bank accounts through direct debit and open banking. The GoCardless global payments network and technology platform take the pain out of getting paid for 70,000 businesses worldwide, from multinational corporations to small businesses. Each year GoCardless processes over US$30 billion of payments across more than 30 countries. GoCardless is headquartered in the UK, with additional offices in Australia, France, Germany, and the United States. Permira is a global investment firm that backs successful businesses with growth ambitions. Founded in 1985, the firm advises funds with assets under management of approximately US$65bn (€58bn) and makes long-term majority and minority investments. The Permira funds have made approximately 300 private equity investments in four key sectors: Technology, Consumer, Services and Healthcare. The Permira funds have an extensive track record in tech investing, having invested US $18.7 billion in 67 companies across enterprise cloud adoption, SaaS, fintech and online marketplaces. Permira employs over 350 people in 15 offices across Europe, North America, and Asia.