GoCardless valued at US$2.1b after raising US$312m

[LONDON] UK financial technology startup GoCardless raised US$312 million in new funding to speed up its expansion in open banking across products and geographies.

The company was valued at US$2.1 billion in the deal, more than double the figure investors gave it during a funding round in Dec 2020, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

GoCardless processes more than US$25 billion in transactions per year for the likes of Klarna Bank and DocuSign. Transaction volumes have risen more than 50 per cent year-on-year as open banking gains traction, chief executive officer Hiroki Takeuchi said in an interview. "Our view is that being able to move money much more directly from one account to the other is always going to be the best way to go," he said.

The round was led by Permira, whose investment comes as large money managers increasingly look to back fast-growing technology companies, with the firm closing its second Growth Opportunities fund in December at US$4 billion. Alongside the new funding, GoCardless also announced it was adding former Klarna executive Michael Rouse and current Klarna chief technology officer Koen Koppen to its board of directors.

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