Pre-IPO pedia | Favoured by Netflix and Sony, Checkout.com crowned UK's top unicorn
As we mentioned in "Pre-IPO Pedia | Valued at $30B, digital banking giant Chime prepares for IPO", the global consumption patterns have changed with the impact of the epidemic.
Online payment has become the mainstream payment method for a long time to come. Checkout.com is one of the companies that has benefited from this impact.
According to the official website of the Checkout.com, it raised $1 billion in the D round of financing, with a valuation of $40 billion.
The company said it tripled its payment volume in 2021 for the third year in a row, meaning it has seen at least a 27-fold increase in payments since the start of 2019.
As well as many cryptocurrency companies including Coinbase, Crypto.com, FTX and MoonPay are customers of Checkout.com.
According to Crunchbase, based on the latest valuation, the company has become the second-largest fintech unicorn in Europe, only after Klarna. It surpassed Revolut, the largest digital bank in the UK.
Its founder became the richest technology billionaire in Europe after the financing.
What did he go through from dropping out of college to becoming a top rich man? IPO Buzz willtakes you to the storyof Checkout.com.
Guillaume Pousaz, a Swiss born in the 1980s, dreamed of becoming an investment banker when he was young.
Unfortunately, in 2005, he had to drop out of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland to take care of his father because of cancer.
Soon after, he moved to California and became a full-time surfer with a passion for surfing.
After running out of cash, Pousaz had to find a job at IPC in 2006 to make ends meet. Since then, he had become attached to the payment company.
He set up NetMerchant, a US to European money transfer service, with his IPC sales executive in 2007.
In 2009, Guillaume Pousaz acquired SMS Pay, based in Mauritius, for $300,000.
In the same year, he founded Opus Payments in Singapore to enable businesses in Hong Kong to process payments from buyers around the world.
In 2012, Opus Payments officially changed its name to Checkout.com to solve online payment processing problems for merchants and their customers.
In the whole payment process, the Checkout.com plays the role of a payment processor, using a variety of technologies to provide consumers with fast and reliable payment services.
It accepts dozens of payment methods such as VISA, Apple Pay, Klarna, PayPal and Alipay, and supports the local processing of nearly 150 currencies in nearly 50 countries.
Customers can use the SDK, tutorials and unified payment API provided by Checkout.com to create their payment solutions according to their own needs.
The Checkout.com identifies risks through machine learning and continuously improves the success rate of identification without affecting the payment experience as much as possible.
Between 2013 and 2017, Checkout.com became a major member of Visa, Mastercard, Unionpay, Diner, Discover and JCB
In February 2020, Checkout.com acquired French payment company ProcessOut.
In May 2020, Checkout.com acquired Pin Payments, a retail payment platform.
In June 2021, the Checkout.com acquired the Estonian consulting company Icefire OU.
After several rounds of acquisitions, Checkout.com's strength and business coverage have increased dramatically.
Interestingly, the Checkout.com has not raised funds for ten consecutive years since its establishment in 2009.
It was not until May 2, 2019, ten years later, that it raised $230 million from such as DST Global at a valuation of $2 billion. It broke the record of A-round financing.
The company's current top five investors are Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, Insight Partners, Coatue, Franklin Templeton.
On June 22, 2020, Checkout.com received a $150 million round B financing led by Coatue.The valuation reached $5.5 billion.
On January 12, 2021, Checkout.com received a $450 million C round of financing led by Tiger Global, with a valuation of $15 billion.
On January 12, 2022, Checkout.com received $1 billion in D-round financing from such as Tiger Global. With a valuation of $40 billion, it became Britain's largest unicorn.
Checkout.com is one of the few fintech companies that has been profitable for years.
Since 2016, when its European business had public financial data, Checkout.com's operating income has been growing all the way, and its net profit has shown a trend of first increasing, then decreasing and then explosive growth.
Although the company's financial situation has achieved good growth, its European business has a net loss of $9.7 million in 2019, due to a significant increase in administrative expenses.
It was the company's first loss since 2013, according to a company spokesman.
Since 2020, Covid-19 has brought prosperity to the online payment business.
The Checkout.com not only turned losses into profits but also its net profit in that year was historically 15.3 times the sum of the previous four years! It can be said that it is very good.
From the phenomenon that Checkout.com has not raised funds for ten years, we can see that the company is not short of money.
After raising $1 billion in January this year, Guillaume Pusaz, founder and CEO of Checkout.com, said in an interview that the company had always aimed for an IPO.
“We'll have a long life in the public market,” Mr. Pousaz said. “We have a couple of years before we get there.”
Mr. Pousaz said he doesn’t feel investor pressure to go public soon because he first raised money less than three years ago.
He also selected investors such as Franklin Templeton that are comfortable holding on to their stakes long after an IPO.
Mooers, Have you ever used Checkout.com? What do you think of the legendary life of its founder, Pousaz? Would you invest in the new UK's biggest unicorn if it goes public? Follow me to join the latest discussion!
Disclaimer: Community is offered by Moomoo Technologies Inc. and is for educational purposes only.
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