Checkout.com Slashes Internal Valuation to $11B, Down from $40B Last Year

On December 13, fintech Checkout.com made headlines with the news that its internal valuation had plummeted from $40 billion last year to just $11 billion. In the current financial landscape, even high-profile fintech companies like Klarna have been imploding spectacularly, and at first glance this lowered valuation appears to be another bitter end for an ambitious fintech.

But something is different about Checkout.com’s devaluation: unlike Klarna and others, this drop in valuation didn’t come about through a disappointing VC fundraising round. Rather, the full-stack payments company intentionally brought its own valuation to nearly a quarter of its high-water mark last year. In fact, this new $11 billion valuation is expected to benefit both the company and its workforce.

“We took advantage of the current conditions to update the tax valuation of the company,” explained the company’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Guillaume Pousaz, in a recent interview on the change. “We decided to do that for our employees so that we can re-strike all the options that have been handed out recently and therefore create more upside potential for them — they will have to pay less for those options.”