London startup GoCardless raises $13 million to grow its online payments platform globally

GoCardless, a U.K.-based startup that helps businesses accept direct debit payments online, has announced a fresh $13 million of funding in a round led by Notion Capital. Existing investors including Balderton Capital, Accel Partners, and Passion Capital also participated in the round.

Founded out of London in 2011, GoCardless touts itself as the most effective way of setting up recurring payments online, and counts 15,000 customers such as TripAdvisor and the Financial Times. Direct debit is one of the most popular ways of making recurring payments in Europe, and GoCardless now claims to help collect more than £1 billion ($1.4 billion) each year.

GoCardless had raised around $12 million before today’s news, with Y Combinator among its earliest funders, so today’s news takes its total funding to the $25 million mark. The fresh cash influx will be used to “meet increasing demand from new enterprises and geographies and to build out its payment network across the world,” the company said in a statement.

In related news, GoCardless has also announced that it’s expanding beyond the U.K., France, and Germany and into Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands, doubling the number of markets it serves. “Building a new payments network that processes over £1 billion in payments is only possible if you are providing real value for companies of all sizes,” said GoCardless founder Hiroki Takeuchi. “While our early years focused on helping SMEs get access to direct debit, larger corporates now also realize the benefits of automating away legacy complexities and reaching new markets. This puts us in a unique position to solve a significant global challenge, and Notion’s support will only accelerate our progress.”

Recurring payments are playing a core part of the online economy, from music subscriptions to digital newspapers, so GoCardless is in the right industry for growth. It’s also one of a number of fintech firms in Europe that are going from strength-to-strength — just last month, fellow U.K. company WorldRemit raised $45 million to grow its money-transfer service globally, while Netherlands-based payments processor Adyen doubled its revenues to $350 million in 2015.