London-based Checkout.com, one of Europe’s fastest-growing fintechs, is moving to new offices near Old Street after recording major YoY growth in net revenues. The company, founded in 2012, plans expand to employ 1,000 people by the end of 2020.
The new office will enable Checkout.com to launch its largest recruitment drive to date, with 100 new positions opening across engineering, commercial and product functions. 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. Checkout.com is on track to have 600 people based in London by the end of 2020.
Checkout.com’s payments platform manages all parts of the payments process. It’s technology can process more than 150 currencies and facilitates transactions sourced from all the major credit and debit cards – Visa, Mastercard, American Express – while also handling alternatives, such as ApplePay and PayPal. Checkout.com offers enterprises the ability to have a unified experience, with feature parity in every market and currency.
The seven-year-old business also shared its annual accounts for 2018, in which it experienced a 60% growth in revenues for its European operations. The total revenues for the European business rose to $74.8 million in 2018, up from $46.8 million in 2017. This growth was supported by an increase in the volume of payments processed by Checkout.com’s technology, which was up by over 150%. As with previous years, the 2018 annual accounts show growth in both net revenues and equity, while the company continues to be profitable.
“Our new headquarters is three times as big as the old one and that’s a clear statement of our commitment to London from where we can build a genuinely global business,” said Guillaume Pousaz, Checkout.com’s CEO and founder. “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.”
“I founded my business in London because of the quality of talent here, a forward-thinking regulator and the overall energy of the startup 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. Moments from Old Street, the space will house Checkout.com’s global headquarters. The new 63,000+ sq ft office will include a terrace, library, coffee shop and gym.
This comes after the UK company raised a record €210 million 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 $2 billion and made Checkout.com one of the UK’s 14 unicorns, or fast-growing private tech businesses worth more than $1 billion.
The global payments market is estimated by McKinsey to be worth $1.9 trillion, and on track to be worth $6 trillion by 2021 as e-commerce grows and more transactions take place online.
Checkout.com has offices in France, Germany, USA, Singapore, Hong Kong, the UAE, Portugal and Mauritius. The company has seen sustained business growth across its core markets of Europe, the Middle East and North America as it capitalises on an increase in digital & mobile commerce and the wider movement towards cashless sales.
