Monday 03 May 2021 | No. 4
XU Biweekly The independent news source for Xero users, by Xero users
Goldman Sachs invests £50m in Starling Bank
GOCARDLESS LAUNCHES OPEN BANKING PAYMENTS
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TARLING, THE LEADING UK DIGITAL BANK, TODAY ANNOUNCES A £50 MILLION INVESTMENT BY GOLDMAN SACHS GROWTH EQUITY (“GOLDMAN SACHS”). THE INVESTMENT IS AN EXTENSION OF THE BANK’S OVERSUBSCRIBED £272 MILLION SERIES D FUNDING ROUND ANNOUNCED IN MARCH 2021, WHICH VALUED IT IN EXCESS OF £1.1 BILLION PRE-MONEY. THIS TAKES THE TOTAL RAISED IN THE SERIES D ROUND TO £322 MILLION.
Starling now has more than two million current accounts, including 350,000 business accounts. Its deposit base has increased from approximately £1 billion just over a year ago, to now more than £6 billion. It is the fastest-growing bank for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe and now holds a 6% share of the UK’s SME banking market. It is on course to report its first full year in profit by the end of its next financial year-end. The new funding announced today will support Starling’s continued rapid and now profitable growth. Anne Boden, founder and CEO of Starling Bank,
OFFERING BUSINESSES A NEW ALTERNATIVE TO TAKING ONEOFF PAYMENTS
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Anne Boden, Founder & CEO, Starling Bank
said: “Securing the support of another global financial heavyweight demonstrates the strength of demand from investors and represents yet another vote of confidence in Starling. Goldman Sachs
$125M in Series G, $1.4B valuation, and the Coming of Age of a Category
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By Krish Subramanian
N 2020, MAKESPACE, THE LEADING FULL-SERVICE STORAGE SOLUTION PROVIDER, SAW THEIR CORE MARKET OF CONSUMERS DECLINE AS THE COVID LOCKDOWN MEASURES WENT INTO EFFECT. MEANWHILE, BUSINESSES THAT MOVED TO A REMOTE CULTURE NEEDED STORAGE FOR THEIR DURABLES. WITHIN DAYS, MAKESPACE LAUNCHED STOR-
Monday 03 May 2021 ISSN 2054-7234
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will bring valuable insight as we continue with the expansion of lending in the UK, as well as our European expansion and anticipated M&A.” James Hayward, managing director at Goldman
AGE-FOR-BUSINESSES. Study.com capitalized on the overnight surge in demand for e-learning by foraying into 18 new markets within 90 days. Today, they are one of the leading online education platforms supporting over 34 million students and educators a month globally. MakeSpace and Study.com both orchestrated these changes on top of their subscription revenue infrastructure – Chargebee. So did countless others. 18,000 customers across 160 countries run their subscription revenue operations on Chargebee.
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Sachs, said: “Starling is one of the leading and most innovative digital banks in the UK, with an ambitious technology-first leadership...
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OCARDLESS, A LEADING FINTECH FOR BANK-TO-BANK PAYMENTS, HAS TODAY LAUNCHED INSTANT BANK PAY, A NEW OPEN BANKING FEATURE DIRECTLY INTEGRATED INTO ITS GLOBAL PAYMENT PLATFORM. WITH INSTANT BANK PAY, MERCHANTS CAN TAKE INSTANT, ONE-OFF BANKTO-BANK PAYMENTS FROM NEW AND EXISTING CUSTOMERS WHILE STILL REAPING THE BENEFITS OF BANK DEBIT FOR THEIR RECURRING PAYMENTS. The announcement marks the first milestone in GoCardless’ journey to accelerate its open banking strategy, for which it received $95m in funding at the end of 2020. By combining open banking technology with its existing global bank debit network, GoCardless can offer its 60,000 merchants a new low-cost, seamless and convenient way to collect instant payments that works for any revenue model. “We’ve specialised in bank-to-bank payments for over 10 years, with bank debit as the primary payment method. And while it provides many advantages to consumers and businesses, speed of payment authorisation is a drawback,” said Hiroki Takeuchi, co-found-
P10 $1.7m in Series A Funding
er and CEO of GoCardless. “Instant Bank Pay addresses this by giving merchants the best of both worlds: open banking will provide instant confirmation of payment authorisation, enabling them to have immediate visibility of their one-off payments, and bank debit will continue to offer the cash flow, cost and retention benefits they have come to expect.” With the introduction of Instant Bank Pay, GoCardless will expand its offering into the adjacent e-commerce market, where it can take on both one-off and ‘card-on-file’ payments. Takeuchi added: “By enabling businesses to take any kind of payment through GoCardless, we can challenge the dominance of cards and move beyond collecting subscriptions, invoices and instalments. The launch of this open banking feature means we can now serve any merchant, regardless of whether they have an ongoing or one-off relationship with their customers.” While it can be used in many scenarios, Instant Bank Pay addresses an issue that is particularly acute for recurring revenue businesses : according to research from GoCardless, 85 per cent of merchants with this business model have a...
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