Payments startup Adyen valued at $1.5B

Fast-growing payments startup Adyen has secured $250 million from investors who have valued the Amsterdam-based startup at $1.5 billion.

Adyen serves as a middleman for Facebook, Spotify, Airbnb and other merchants, enabling them to accept Visa, MasterCard and soon bitcoin in nearly 200 currencies worldwide.

The eight-year-old company allows merchants to accept payments on the Web, mobile and more recently at individual points of sale.

“In a world where consumers from different regions vary in how they prefer to pay for their goods and services, the leading online merchants depend on Adyen to power global commerce,” said Pieter van der Does, CEO of Adyen. “We are proud to be the preferred partner to work with global businesses, and we are seeing a surge in demand across retail, travel, gaming, advertising, transportation and social media. Adyen has built a 21st century payment platform that is far ahead of the competition.”

With global expansion as a key growth driver for companies around the world, the global e-commerce market is expected to grow from $1.5 trillion today to $2.4 trillion in 2018. Yet, historically, most payments have been processed using legacy platforms on dated infrastructure, not optimized for today’s commerce needs.Adyen has designed and built a global, omnichannel (online, mobile and in-store) platform that the company says solves this problem.

Adyen is the partner of choice for more than 3,500 marquee customers globally, including four of the five largest U.S. Internet companies:

Facebook works with Adyen to process global transactions for its games and ads activities in 137 countries across North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Spotify partners with Adyen to enable subscription purchases in 58 countries and 22 different currencies.

Airbnb relies on Adyen to allow global hosts and guests to use local payment methods such as Alipay in China.

Among the new generation of payment platforms, Adyen is unique in allowing merchants to accept payments from nearly every country in the world and in 187 currencies. The company manages transactions end-to-end through direct connections with all major credit card companies, and it accepts more than 250 payment methods, including Apple Pay, Alipay in China, Boletos in Brazil, Qiwi in Russia, SEPA Direct Debit in Europe and Konbini in Japan.

Additionally, thanks to its omnichannel platform, Adyen has the ability to process payments made online, in-store or on mobile devices. This enables retailers to deliver compelling shopping experiences, whether through express checkout, home delivery of in-store purchases or in-store returns of online purchases.

“Adyen is at the forefront of a rapidly globalizing payments market with tremendous growth potential,” said Jonathan Korngold, managing director and global head of General Atlantic’s Financial Services Sector. “In addition to exponential growth in e-commerce, we are also seeing a rise in consumer demand for integrated experiences across in-store and online shopping. Considering the inherent opportunities in both of these trends, we believe that Adyen is well-positioned to extend its position as the leading global payments solution in the years to come.”

Headquartered in Amsterdam and San Francisco, with offices across North America, South America, Europe and Asia, Adyen serves more than 3,500 businesses and four of the five largest U.S. Internet companies, including well-known brands such as Facebook, Airbnb, Spotify, Groupon, Evernote, Booking.com, Viagogo, Yelp, Vodafone, Mango, O’Neill, SoundCloud, Indiegogo, KLM and JustFab.