Alphabet-Backed GoCardless Nears $1B Valuation In Latest Funding Round: CNBC

London-based fintech start-up, GoCardless, is close to achieving a “unicorn” status after raising $95 million in fresh investments, CNBC reports.

What Happened: GoCardless was valued at $970 million, based on the latest funding round where the fintech company raised $95 million from the venture capital arm of Bain Capital. 

GoCardless was founded in 2011, and it processes recurring direct debit payments for its business clients, for things like subscriptions, invoices, and installments. The firm has backing from venture capital arms of big companies like Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL and Salesforce.com, Inc CRM, CNBC noted.

Why It Matters: GoCardless plans to use the proceeds from the latest funding to cash in on the emerging trend of “open banking,” which aims to open up precious banking data and payment services to fintech firms.

“There’s a lot of activity going on around open banking, but most of that so far has been on the account information side, and more about the data,” GoCardless CEO and co-founder Hiroki Takeuchi told CNBC.

Reportedly, the firm has 55,000 customers and processes $18 billion worth of payments each year in more than 30 countries.

GoCardless said that its revenues grew 46% year-over-year in November. CNBC notes that U.K. companies house filing shows that GoCardless’ revenue grew 31% YoY to £29.3 million in 2019.

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