GoCardless nears Unicorn status on $95 million funding round

GoCardless, a processor of recurring debit payments for more than 55,000 businesses worldwide, has raised $95 million in a Series F funding round.

The latest fundraise, led by Bain Capital Ventures, follows 46% year-on-year growth for GoCardless, which each year processes $18bn+ of payments across more than 30 countries. It brings the total raised to-date to $240m and takes the firm’s valuation to $970 million.

The company says it will use the funding to accelerate its open banking strategy, and expand its offering into the adjacent e-commerce market, challenging the the dominance of credit cards in instant payments and making bank-to-bank debit payments available as a lower-cost alternative to cards.

The ultimate ambition is to provide businesses with a complete open banking payment processing service, including features such as refunds, payment reconciliation and error handling.

Hiroki Takeuchi, CEO and co-founder of GoCardless, says: “We believe that open banking is set to disrupt the payment landscape by introducing new, simpler and more secure ways of making bank-to-bank payments that will compete with the traditional card networks.”