Cross-border payments’ biggest funding rounds in Q1
The biggest funding rounds in the first quarter of 2021 came from Stripe, Checkout.com and Rapyd, which boosted their valuations significantly. But they weren’t the only companies to see significant raises in Q1, particularly given the pandemic-induced boost to ecommerce.
Stripe, the most valuable private company produced in Silicon Valley, has amassed an impressive valuation at $95bn, almost triple that of the previous funding round in April 2020. It’s a sign of how successful the pandemic year has been for ecommerce and payment (processing) companies. More than 200,000 new companies from Europe alone signed up to Stripe in the last year, and it now plans to expand further in the continent, as well as launch in Brazil, India and Indonesia later this year.
Checkout.com, a payment processor that supports global payments and payouts, tripled its valuation to $15bn in its January 2021 Series C funding round, raising $450m and bringing the total funding to $830m. Having launched new offices in New York and Denver, Checkout.com is increasing its focus on US-based businesses, facilitating domestic, global and cross-border payments.
dLocal, a payments platform that helps global merchants reach customers in emerging markets, announced its $150m raise on 2 April 2021, bringing the total funding to c.$350m. This has increased its value to $5bn, roughly four times more than just seven months prior, when it raised $200m at a $1.2bn valuation. dLocal has also brought a new COO onboard, JP Morgan’s former global head of fintech, to steer the company’s next chapter of growth.
Elsewhere, PPRO (local payments), Flutterwave (African commerce) and PapayaGlobal (global payroll), have all reached unicorn status with $1bn+ valuations. Meanwhile, Airwallex (ecommerce) and Rapyd (payments APIs) have both seen their valuations climb above $2.5bn.
How are cross-border ecommerce companies pricing?
