Funding Roundup: Adyen, SoFi, Chillr Land Investments (Oct. 5, 2015)
Dutch payments processor Adyen has landed an investment that brings the company’s total valuation to $2.3 billion—and includes some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley. The cash infusion came from Iconiq Capital, a fund that invests on behalf of tech titans, including Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sean Parker. Adyen—which processes online payments for the likes of Spotify, Facebook and Netflix—just nine months ago landed a $250 million funding round in 2014’s biggest fintech venture investment. Adyen CEO Pieter van der Does told the Wall Street Journal the company still has the majority of that investment in its coffers but couldn’t turn down the connections that came with Iconiq, which will help Adyen pursue more large national and international retailers, he said. The company also has ambitions to move into processing payments for brick-and-mortar retailers. The company earned $185 million in revenue in 2014, and expects to double that amount this year, Does added.
In other funding news, alternative financing startup SoFi pulled in $1 billion in a deal billed as the largest single round of financing in the fintech space to date. SoftBank led the Series E round, which brings the four-year-old SoFi’s overall funding to more than $1.4 billion. The San Francisco-based company originally offered refinancing for student loans and has since moved into mortgage lending and refinancing and personal loans. SoFi has funded more than $4 billion in loans since 2011 and expects to pass the $6 billion mark by the end of this year.
Finally, Sequoia Capital led a $6 million Series A financing round for Chillr, a P2P money transfer app made by Indian startup Backwater Technologies Ltd. Chillr enables users to send money to any contact in their phone book and recharge their mobile phones, TV subscriptions and data cards—all via linked bank account and PIN authentication. Since launching in February, the app has added support for two Indian banks. Chillr plans to add more than a dozen more banks by early 2016.
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