Stripe-Backed Rapyd Raises $100 Million to Provide Global Payments
Between the likes of Square, Stripe and PayPal—to name just a few—there are no shortage of companies that will handle business payments. Nonetheless, an upstart called Rapyd believes it can capture a big share of the market, and it’s raised a huge amount of money to do so.
On Tuesday, London-based Rapyd announced it raised a $ 100 million Series C round from led Oak HC/FT to expand its services in countries around the world.
In an interview with Fortune, Rapyd CEO Arik Shtilman made the case that his company can gain marketshare because it offers a full suite of services beyond collecting customer payments. Namely, he pointed to Rapyd’s ability to offer digital payment wallets, as well as helping companies comply with “know your customer” laws and other banking laws.
Shtilman said Rapyd supports hundreds of payment methods around the world, and can cater to companies that don’t have bank accounts—even providing cash pick-up services.
“Other companies are like ‘we’ll collect the payment for you.’ We saw a need for a platform that does much than payments—such as storing money in custody, sanctions compliance and tax matters,” he said.
Rapyd’s current services don’t include support for cryptocurrency, though Shtilman said the company is looking into it.
Shtilman added that Rapyd’s worldwide reach is helpful for companies with a global customer base, allowing them to avoid having to negotiate the complex payment procedures of dozens of countries. He also touted the company’s fee structure, which doesn’t require minimum charges or onboarding costs. Instead, Rapyd uses an API system that bills clients based on the number of requests they make—a process he likened to Amazon Web Service’s fee model.
Shtilman said he couldn’t disclose the identity of Rapyd’s customers, but described them as big names in the gig economy space “like food delivery and ride hailing”—a description that would appear to cover the likes of Uber Eats.
Rapyd has already passed $ 20 million in revenue this year, Shtilman said, and expects to surpass $ 50 million in revenue in 2020.
The size of Rapyd’s Series C is remarkable, especially as the company raised a $ 40 million round earlier this year co-led by Stripe. One venture capitalist told Fortune his firm was surprised by the size of the new round.
“The earlier Stripe round made more sense in the context of a strategic vs. financial investment. But payments is hot right now, and there’s a lot of money sloshing around the late stage funding ecoystem,” said the venture capitalist who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Other investors in the Series C round included Stripe, General Catalyst, Tiger Global, Target Global and Entrée Capital.
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