One of the renowned online consumer-branded payments startup Recharge.com has raised another round of funding. The company has announced raising a notable £26 million in its series B funding round and is all set to use it for bettering its services and accelerating its global expansion. In a conversation with UKTN, Recharge.com’s CEO Günther Vogelpoel reveals more on what’s in store for the scaleup and what are its future plans.
International expansion, new services and more
The £26 million Series B funding round for the company was led by a new investor SmartFin while existing investors Prime Ventures and Kreos Capital participated as well. With the latest funding round, the total funding raised by Recharge till date stands at £51 million. Vogelpoel tells us that the funding will be utilised to accelerate the company’s expansion in the US market and additional new markets in Asia, Latin America and the GCC.
“Recharge.com will invest further in the enhancement of our mobile app proposition with new services and features. Additionally, we also plan to introduce our own financial services and banking products to serve our customers even better,” Vogelpoel reveals. Furthermore, while the company has not revealed its valuation post fresh funding, the CEO notes that it is a ‘steep’ increase from its previous funding rounds.
Recharge.com employs over 150 people around the globe while handling everything from its Amsterdam head office. We can expect the startup to hire more people as this year heads to a close.
SmartFin founder, Jürgen Ingels, comments, “The Recharge platform as branded payment infrastructure provides a perfect basis to expand to other kinds of offerings. After looking at different European players we believe that Recharge offers a great opportunity within the payment space. Integrating brands and payments while providing maximum flexibility to the customer is the way to go. I’m personally excited to get again involved in a sector I love and I look forward to contributing to the further international growth of Recharge.”
UK focus with new services
Recharge.com is a major player in the branded payments sector, which is currently estimated to be worth $3+ trillion and could be around $5 trillion in 2025. The company says it serves 3 million customers with sales of over $500 million, which is said to be growing at a rate of 50% year-on-year. The company expects to reach over $1 billion within the next 2 years.
The UK is certainly a big market for Recharge.com and Vogelpoel says that the company will continue the growth of its UK website. They are also working on expanding their product portfolio in the country while focussing on delivering a notable mobile user experience. “There are still many prepaid products and services that are not yet available, like utilities, which we want to implement and offer as well,” Vogelpoel adds.
Should fintechs be worried?
In addition to its expansion in the UK, Recharge.com also plans to launch some new features and services. It could soon be taking on well-known fintechs with its own financial services and banking products. However, the company is looking at a slightly different approach.
“We see in the fintech landscape that there are many ways of partnering with companies that offer building blocks in the personal finance ecosystem, such as bill payments, wallets, and cards. We will explore how to broaden our offering with financial services or banking products to even better serve our customers in one place, providing them with a one-stop-shop for all their branded payment needs,” Vogelpoel concludes.
The post Recharge.com’s CEO says valuation sees ‘steep’ increase post £26M funding as it aims for international expansion appeared first on UKTN (UK Tech News).
