Mollie raises $800 million in series C funding round

The series C round values Mollie at $6.5 billion

Mollie, a growing payment service provider in Europe, has closed an $800 million series C funding round.

The series C round takes the fintech’s total funding raised to more than $940 million. This round was led by funds managed by Blackstone Growth (BXG), Blackstone’s growth equity investing business, and included EQT Growth, General Atlantic, HMI Capital and Alkeon Capital.

TCV, which led the series B round in September 2020, also participated.

The new funding will fuel Mollie’s international expansion, team scaling and continued investment in product and engineering, helping the fintech to realise its vision of becoming a major payment service provider.

Launched in 2004, Mollie is among the largest payment service providers in Europe. Today, it serves more than 120,000 monthly active merchants of all sizes across the continent.

In 2020, Mollie processed more than €10 billion in transactions and is on track to handle more than €20 billion during 2021.

Mollie’s products, simple and transparent pricing and excellent customer service, alongside its no lock-in contracts, have driven rapid growth both during the pandemic and the months following relaxation of lockdown restrictions across Europe. Mollie counts Deliveroo, Gymshark, Wickey and Otrium as customers.

The series C round values Mollie at $6.5 billion, which, based on CBInsights data, suggests it is now one of the top five most valuable privately held fintechs in Europe, and one of the top 20 in the world.

Shane Happach, chief executive officer at Mollie, says: “There’s something very special about Mollie. In the three months since I joined the team we’ve achieved so much: making preparations for a full launch in the UK, driving 600% growth in Germany and hiring an impressive set of team members and executives.”

“Over the past months, Mollie has been receiving a remarkable amount of interest from some of the world’s foremost fintech investors. In bringing on BXG, we believe we have an investor who can help Mollie in our next phase of growth. The involvement of our new group of investors demonstrates confidence in Mollie’s growth, strategy and product set.”

Paul Morrissey, who leads European investing for Blackstone Growth, says: “Mollie is one of Europe’s most exciting high-growth businesses and is at the forefront of enabling next-generation payments for online SMEs across Europe. We are excited to partner with Mollie’s fantastic team and look forward to leveraging Blackstone’s capital, expertise and global network to unlock the company’s next phase of growth. This investment underlines Blackstone’s confidence in Europe as a place for high-growth companies to thrive.”

Today, Mollie has around 480 employees and plans to hire 300 new team members in the next six-to-nine months.

Mollie is evaluating additional countries for expansion both within Europe and beyond. The fintech also plans to continue investing in its technology platform and expanding its product portfolio beyond payments into financial services for small- and medium-sized enterprises, following the arrival of new chief product officer, Rogier Schoute.

Image: Mollie

Mark Dugdale