GoCardless goes big with Salesforce Ventures investment

GoCardless will next week join the ranks of fast-growing British fintech company signalling major growth ambitions by raising new funds in a deal valuing it at hundreds of millions of pounds.

Sky News understands that the digital payments provider has finalised a new funding round that will be announced in the coming days.

Sources said the fundraising was being led by Salesforce Ventures, the venture investing arm of the listed US enterprise software group.

Other investors are also expected to participate, while the precise size of the funding round or valuation of GoCardless were unclear on Thursday.

GoCardless, which was co-founded in 2011 by Hiroki Takeuchi and Tom Blomfield, who went on to set up the digital lender Monzo,‎ enables clients' customers to pay online by using bank account information instead of a card.

That helps companies avoid the issue of card-based payment failures which have a significant impact on consumers' online purchasing behaviour.

It raised $22.5m in the autumn of 2017 from existing investors including‎ Accel Partners and Balderton Capital.

GoCardless and Salesforce Ventures declined to comment.

The latest funding round for the digital payments group comes after a flurry of deals involving British fintech groups.

In the last few weeks, companies such as Iwoca, Oaknorth and Starling Bank have all announced fresh injections of capital worth a combined figure approaching £500m.