After the pandemic began, the world witnessed a rise in the need for digital services, including the banking sector. In a recent development, a London-based fintech company PPRO, a provider of local payment infrastructure for online commerce, has raised $180M (approx €148.5M) in a fresh round of funding.
Investors in the round
The round saw participation from Eurazeo Growth, Sprints Capital, and Wellington Management.
Prior to this, the company had raised $50M (approx €48.1M) from Sprints Capital as well as Citi Ventures and HPE Growth. The company’s current valuation after the latest round is now over $1B (approx €823.6M).
Financial Technology Partners acted as exclusive financial advisor and Noerr as legal advisor to PPRO in the transaction.
Use of the raised capital
The latest round will be used by the company to fuel its continued global expansion and support the development of its border-free payment technology and services.
Simon Black, CEO of PPRO, says “Beyond securing the support of such prestigious investors and achieving a milestone valuation, we’ve enabled our customers to grow at record numbers during what has been a tough time for many. By giving businesses the ability to offer payment choice, we’ve helped give people around the world better access to goods and services that improve their lives.”
Black continues, “Our unique local payments infrastructure empowers our customers to quickly increase their global footprint. This investment will help us deliver the highest performance possible for companies leading the global payments industry.”
About PPRO
Founded in 2006 by Philipp Bock, Philipp Nieland, and Tobias Schreyer, PPRO’s local payments platform and expert services help its users to get the industry’s best conversion rates in markets globally by allowing online shoppers to pay with their preferred payment method.
According to the company, its technology allows payment services providers and enterprises with payment platforms to plug in via simple APIs and offload the intricate complexities and massive costs of providing payment method choice to local consumers. Its singular focus on local payment methods helps its customers rapidly speed up time to market and reduce operational costs up to 10 times, claims PPRO.
The company says its vision from the start has been to simplify access to the many different payment methods required by consumers and businesses across the world.
In addition, PPRO also offers e-money issuing programs for consumers and corporate. They are FCA licensed to issue e-money as they continue to strengthen their links with alternative payment method schemes and banks around the world.
PPRO claims to have established itself as a trusted infrastructure provider in the cross-border payments space powering international growth for payment service providers and platforms such as Citi, Elavon, Mastercard Payment Gateway Services, Mollie, PayPal, and Worldpay.
Recent development
Last year, the company doubled its year-on-year transaction volumes in the fourth quarter, expanded its global team by 60 per cent, and developed new strategic partnerships with local payment methods in high-growth markets like Indonesia and Singapore.
Commenting on the market, Nathalie Kornhoff-Bruls, MD at Eurazeo Growth, says, “All signs for the future indicate that digital commerce, and even more so cross-border commerce, will continue to grow exponentially while innovation in payment methods remains strong. As a result, facilitating local payments is becoming increasingly complex. Payment service providers, however, no longer have a choice as merchants and their customers are pushing for the adoption.”
In December 2020, Apexx Global, a global payments platform, announced its partnership with PPRO to drive cost savings and conversion rates for merchants globally. Through the sharing of industry expertise, the partnership was aimed at providing benefits to merchants seeking a wide range of payment options and increased transaction flexibility.
Prior to that in June 2020, PPRO announced direct integration with Paysafecash. With this integration, Paysafecash will be available for 24 markets, including the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Romania, and other markets where cash remains a preferred payment method. Payment service providers (PSPs) and their merchants who partner with PPRO get easy access to consumers in over 175 e-commerce markets through just one API and one contract.
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