Payments company Checkout.com, founded by Guillaume Pousaz, was already profitable when it became a $2 billion company.
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Pousaz took advice on taking external investment from mentor Reid Hoffman, the CEO and founder of LinkedIn, and says it's important to choose the right investors rather than focusing on the amount of money they give you.Stories of successful"bootstrapped" startups, which take no external funding, are rare in the tech world. It's why UK payments firm Checkout.com seems to have come from nowhere.
According to Checkout's most recent financial filings, the company reported $47 million in revenue in 2017, EBITDA of $8.4 million, and a gross profit margin of 54%. These are the kinds of numbers venture capitalists dream of — but it was all done without external investment.Checkout.com counts food delivery company Deliveroo as a client.Avoiding the hype has been intentional, CEO Pousaz tells Business Insider. He says he prefers to control the growth of his business to avoid overreach.
He adds that he didn't want to raise the full amount of $230 million, but that he was swayed by the quality of investors such as DST and Insight, neither of whom tend to write small checks. He will use the cash to boost expansion, make hires, and keep the rest on Checkout's balance sheet. His life is so packed in part because of proximity to family tragedy, he says. He dropped out of college in Lausanne, Switzerland, failing to take his final exams after his father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He describes that time as"foundational" and says it made he and his wife determine to live a full life and live in different places.Steve Jennings/Getty Images
"In 2012 we started making a bit of money and we began hiring in the UK one by one," Pousaz said. It would, he added, have been impossible to have built the startup from scratch in the UK, thanks to the higher average salaries.Investor Ophelia Brown was a principal at Index Ventures in 2013, and sent Pousaz a cold email introducing herself. It would be another six years before Pousaz would accept a check from her.
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