The global pandemic has had a dramatic financial impact on both consumers and merchants, this has led to more transactions moving onto digital platforms. In a recent development, London-based Rapyd, a fintech-as-a-service platform that provides local payments network services, has raised $300M (approx €245.5M) in its Series D round of funding led by Coatue – a technology-focused investment manager led by Philippe Laffont.
Reportedly, post this round, Rapyd is now valued at $2.5B (approx €2.05B). Prior to this, when the company raised funding in 2019, it was valued at $1.2B (approx €982M).
Besides, the round also saw participation from several new investors including Spark Capital, Avid Ventures, FJ Labs, and Latitude, along with current investors General Catalyst, Oak HC/FT, Tiger Global, Target Global, Durable Capital, Tal Capital, and Entrée Capital.
Use of the funds
The raised capital will be used to double the engineering and product teams, as well as expand the “Self-Service” element of Rapyd’s platform. This would empower businesses globally to onboard and utilise its financial capabilities in the shortest possible time frame, claims the company.
Arik Shtilman, co-founder and CEO of Rapyd, says, “To kick off 2021 with this substantial round of funding to further invest in our platform is a tremendous vote of confidence both in the growing need for local payment solutions that can be deployed at scale globally and more specifically in our vision and company.”
The company will continue its focus on core markets that serve B2C and B2B e-commerce payments, marketplace, and financial services businesses.
Who does Rapyd serve?
Founded in 2016 by Arik Shtilman, Rapyd is a single technology platform that claims to be the fastest way to power local payments anywhere in the world, enabling companies across the globe to access markets quicker than ever before. “We serve multiple industries and verticals, including global e-commerce companies, gig-economy players, banks, and B2B businesses,” says Shtilman.
“We have built a global payments solution for anyone who needs to accept or pay money to their buyers or sellers, move money around the world, or create new fintech services for their users.”
According to the company, it has solved one of the key challenges – fragmentation. Consumers and businesses around the world like to pay and be paid in different ways, including cash, credit cards, bank transfers, ewallets, and local debit schemes. Rapyd gives businesses the ability to offer a choice of any local payment method.
Its platform embeds fintech services into any application and simplifies the offering of local payment methods through an easy-to-use API while managing diverse compliance and regulatory requirements.
Businesses can accept and send payments without having to build their own infrastructure through the Rapyd Global Payments Network which supports local payment methods including cards, bank transfers, ewallets, and cash.
The platform is unifying fragmented payment systems worldwide by bringing together over more than 900 payment methods in over 100 countries.
“The demand for online payments has skyrocketed following the restrictions due to the effects of COVID, and as a company, we are well placed to provide businesses across the globe with the solutions they need and to get them up and running fast,” says Arik Shtilman. 2020 experienced a massive acceleration in the adoption of local and cross-border digital payments, which has fueled tremendous global growth for Rapyd.
Following Rapyd’s acquisition and integration of European card acquirer Korta in 2020, the company is now exploring additional strategic acquisitions in the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Previous fundraising
In December 2019, the company secured $20M (approx €18M) in a funding round led by Durable Capital Partners LP.
Prior to that in October 2019, the company raised $100M (approx €92M) in its Series C round of funding, led by Oak HC/FT along with participation from Tiger Global, Coatue, General Catalyst, Target Global, Stripe and Entrée Capital.
And, in February 2019, Rapyd raised $40M (approx €35M) in its Series B round jointly led by General Catalyst and Stripe, a payments giant along with the participation of other investors such as Target Global and IGNIA. It said that the funds were raised to add more functions to its platform, and to expand its customer base, and hire more staff.
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