GoCardless, the global leader in recurring payments, has secured a $75 million Series E investment to open up access to the world’s first global bank debit network.
By spring 2019, the GoCardless network will cover 70 per cent of the world’s recurring payments volume, spanning North America, Europe and APAC, enabling businesses to take recurring payments in any currency, via automatic bank debit.
New investors – Adams Street Partners, GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Salesforce Ventures participated in the round and were joined by return investors Accel Partners, Balderton Capital, Notion Capital and Passion Capital. GoCardless will use this investment to drive organic growth globally, building teams in new offices across EMEA, APAC and North America and giving businesses around the world access to one unified global bank debit network for taking subscription, instalment and invoice payments.
The boom of the subscription economy and the rise of B2B services has meant that today many organisations have recurring revenue models – around 18 per cent of global payments are now recurring. But these businesses still rely on unsuitable payment options designed for one-off transactions like cards, cheques and manual bank transfer. Nearly half of all global business transactions – $58 trillion in 2016 – are still done on paper, while global subscription businesses can lose up to four per cent of customers every month through avoidable payment churn.
Hiroki Takeuchi, CEO, GoCardless, said: “The way businesses collect recurring payments is broken. Using systems that are unfit for purpose is killing businesses. A global network for bank debit is an absolute necessity in allowing businesses to easily collect recurring payments anywhere, in any currency. Thanks to the support of our investors we can now open up our global network and payments platform to more businesses across the world and deliver on our mission to take the pain out of getting paid, so that businesses can focus on what they do best.”
GoCardless is also using the investment to launch innovations in its recurring payment platforms, establishing bank debit as the best fit for today’s recurring revenue businesses. These include giving businesses easy access to cross border payment services like FX, boosting business cash flow with instant settlement, and increasing transaction success rates through payment intelligence.
Today, GoCardless is the only global payments company focused on recurring payments. More than 40,000 global merchants transact through GoCardless each month and the business processes $10bn of payments each year. GoCardless is also showing strong international growth: with 290 employees across four offices in the UK, France, Australia and Germany. The company has also seen a 500 per cent increase in revenue from non-UK customers since 2017.
“GoCardless has assembled a world class team with deep financial and technical experience, and solves a real customer need to process recurring payments simply at low cost. This has driven great growth across a wide variety of customers,” said Tom Hulme, General Partner at GV. “The company’s seamless integrations with direct debit networks globally takes the pain out of getting paid for recurring revenue businesses, making GoCardless well-positioned to have a meaningful impact on the payments market.”
Diego Passarela, Head of Billing and Payments at Quandoo, a global restaurant booking service, commented: “We used to have to collect payments with a different bank in every country, each with a different set up. GoCardless’ global network and platform make our lives much easier, giving us one set up for all countries. We currently offer GoCardless as a payment option in the UK, Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Italy – later this year we’re rolling out to Australia. Wherever we offer it, it’s the preferred payment option for our customers, with up to 85% adoption. For us, it means we get paid reliably and on time, with better visibility into our payments data. This allows us to make better business decisions, faster.”
