Technology

Posted on October 9, 2019 by staff

FinTech unicorn Checkout.com triples London office

Technology

One of Europe’s fastest-growing FinTech firms is moving to a larger London office, having outgrown its HQ in just over a year.

Checkout.com’s new office will enable it to launch its largest recruitment drive to date, it said, allowing for 100 new positions across engineering, commercial and product functions.

The firm’s tech processes 150 currencies, facilitating transactions from major credit and debit cards as well as alternatives, such as Apple Pay and PayPal.

The UK business has doubled in size since 2018, with staff numbers set to reach 300 people by the end of 2019, up from 155 a year earlier. It said it is on track to have 600 people based in London by the end of 2020.

The seven-year-old business also shared its annual accounts for 2018, reporting a 60 per cent growth in revenues for its European operations.

The total revenues for the European business rose to $74.8m in 2018, up from $46.8m in 2017.

This growth was supported by an increase in the volume of payments processed by Checkout.com’s technology, which reportedly saw over 150 per cent increase.

Guillaume Pousaz, Checkout.com’s CEO and founder called the triple-sized office a statement of commitment to London.

“The UK is home to the largest eCommerce market in Europe and we are proud to provide payments to many of the country’s biggest brands including companies in traditional sectors like media and travel, as well as emerging ecommerce and FinTech businesses,” he said.

“I founded my business in London because of the quality of talent here, a forward-thinking regulator and the overall energy of the start-up scene. We are excited to start this next chapter of our story.”

Checkout.com has signed up companies including Adidas, Virgin, EasyGroup, TransferWise and Yoyo Wallet to its payments technology and the rate of growth in the business means it has outgrown its 18,000 sq ft office in Fitzrovia, just 13 months since moving in.

The UK company raised a record $230m in Series A funding in May, securing the backing of US investors Insight Partners and DST Global. The deal valued the payments processor at nearly $2bn and made Checkout.com one of the UK’s 14 unicorns, or fast-growing private tech businesses worth more than $1bn.

Checkout.com has offices in France, Germany, USA, Singapore, Hong Kong, the UAE, Portugal and Mauritius.