Klarna is still comfortably at the top of the pile when it comes to venture capitalist-backed fintech firms in Europe. But with Checkout.com’s recent $1 billion Series D fundraising round, the Swedish BNPL leader may have cause for concern.
A standout London-based digital payments servicer, Checkout.com has doubled its overall valuation yet again with this funding round, this time to $40 billion. While this milestone is impressive in its own right, particularly for the crowded European market, the trend is even more remarkable when considering Checkout.com only launched its first round of funding in 2019, with its valuation increasing 20 times in the last three years. The most recent Series D round was led by previous backers Tiger Global, Insight Partners, and GIC, with Altimeter and Franklin Templeton among the newcomers to the company’s cap table.
The environment for European private capital-supported firms continues to be an extremely lucrative one. After the overall value of fintech VC deals nearly tripled between 2020 and 2021, according to a report by Pitchbook, 2022 is looking to see even steeper growth as enterprises and startups alike look to capture Web3 lightning in a bottle.
