GoCardless has raised $540 million acrossmultiple funding rounds, and is currently valued at $2.1 billion.

GoCardless has raised a total of approximately $500 million across multiple funding rounds, and is valued at $2.1 billion.

£1.5m Seed (2012) Lead Investors: Accel, Passion Capital, SV Angel, Y Combinator

£3.3m Series A (2013) Lead Investor: Accel

$7m Series B (2013) Lead Investor: Balderton

$13.7m Series C (2016) Lead Investors: Notion Capital, Balderton

$21.4m Series C Extension/D (2017): Lead Investors: Accel, Balderton

$75m Series E (2019) Lead Investors: Google Ventures, Adam Street Partners

$105m Series F (2021) Lead Investors: Bain Capital Partners

$312m Series G (2022) Lead Investors: Permira, BlackRock Private Equity Partners

As of 2022, GoCardless reportedly processes $30 billion worth oftransactions annually and achieved $100m in revenue.
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- 2021 $60m ARR
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- 2022 $120m ARR + 100%
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- 2023 $180m ARR + 50%
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- 2024 $250m ARR + 30%

Highlights:

The Idea vs. Execution Debate: Execution is critical, but the idea sets the potential for success or failure. Pivoting early to refine the idea ensures it addresses core problems effectively.

Recognising Inflection Points: Inflection points often feel like a grind rather than clear moments. Key actions like hiring or partnerships can drive growth, but their impact is clearer in hindsight.

Evolving Leadership: Founders must adapt as their role shifts from direct to indirect leadership. This transition becomes vital when bringing in senior executives and balancing trust and strategy.

The Risks of Over-Expansion: Expanding too soon hinders growth. Success often depends on mastering existing markets before scaling, as seen in the need for a strong SMB base before targeting larger clients.

Self-Sustaining Success: True success is creating a profitable, self-sustaining business. Profitability proves value, while scaling solely with external capital doesn’t ensure long-term success.

What are some common misconceptions about building a startup?

Looking back, I underestimated the importance of the idea itself. Initially, I believed execution mattered more than the idea, but over time, I’ve come to realise that while execution is crucial, the idea really sets the boundaries for success and failure. With a decent level of execution, the idea defines the potential for the upside and downside. This is also why pivoting becomes so important—it allows you to refine the idea to better solve the fundamental problem you're addressing.

To what extent has overcoming inflection points been a challenge for you and for the business?

Inflection points in a business are not always clear-cut. In reality, you're constantly going through them, and it’s difficult to pinpoint specific moments when they happen. It’s not like you can easily say, “Here are the three key inflection points,” because it often feels like a daily grind rather than distinct, noticeable steps. You can only really see these moments in hindsight, after they’ve happened, and create a narrative around them.

That said, certain actions can create significant step changes in a business, such as hiring a key person, winning a major partnership, or landing a big deal. These outcomes can drive growth, but they aren't necessarily inflection points themselves. 

As the organization grows, you do start to notice distinct phases and shifts. For example, when we reached 50 people there were clear changes in how the company operated.

One of the biggest transitions came when we hit around 150 people. That’s when we shifted from being a close-knit team where everyone knew each other to becoming a larger organization. Now, with about 800 people, I often don’t recognize everyone, and sometimes I have to guess if someone works at GoCardless based on how they look at me. These are the kinds of inflection points that shape the company, though they often only become obvious when you step back and reflect.

How have you as a founder had to adapt?

You constantly have to adapt, and I think the most profound adaptation happens in a specific phase. For me, the big change came between 100 and 200 people. That's when I went from being just the founder to also being the CEO in a more formal sense. 

Before you hit 100 people it feels more like everyone is just working closely together and you're leading very directly. But once you reach a point where you have to lead indirectly, it becomes a significant shift in how you work. 

Another big change is when you start bringing in more senior people, which also alters how you approach your role.

What have been the biggest challenges you have faced building your leadership team and which have been the most important hires?

In the early startup phase, when you're focused on finding product-market fit and generating your first revenue, you need people who are great doers—those who are adaptable and can solve problems quickly. But as the company scales, the needs of the business change, and you need systems builders—people who can create structures and organizations that solve problems more efficiently. Right now, we’re in a transition where we need a different profile, though I’m still figuring out what that looks like.

One of the hardest parts of this growth process has been making the necessary changes in the team. The pattern for me has been that I have tended to make these decisions too late. While some might say I’ve handled it well, I’m certain others, especially the board, would argue that I've been too slow. But throughout it all, treating people with respect and care when letting them go has been something I've always prioritized. The board might give me a hard time about the timing, that’s part of their role in pushing the company forward.

What do you wish someone had told you about your startup journey that would have helped you reach $100m revenue faster?

I've always had a tendency to micromanage, which I believe has sometimes slowed things down. While I’ve learned to let people do their jobs, what I choose to micromanage has shifted over time, becoming more abstract or "meta." 

Early on, I didn’t fully appreciate the value of experience and expertise, but that changed as the company grew. It wasn’t about hiring senior people from big name companies, but finding those who could help us navigate the next phase of growth. That shift in perspective really became clear when I started to value the right expertise for the journey ahead.

When you hit approximately $30m what were the most important things you did to reach $100m?

One thing we were quite late to, at least it felt that way to me, was clearly identifying the leading indicators of our business and driving those aggressively. For a while, we were mostly chasing revenue, but revenue is such a lagging metric—especially in a business like ours—that it doesn't help you understand the real levers for growth. We hadn’t built a system we could easily scale up or down because we didn't fully understand what drove that growth. The big shift came when we started to recognize and focus on those key levers and then pushed them hard.

Any advice you received early in your journey you ignored, but later realised was crucial?

One of the biggest mistakes we made, as a recurring pattern, was not being sufficiently focused. You hear it all the time, but it's easy to ignore. There were too many instances where we tried to expand into something new before we had truly mastered what we were already doing. This put us in a position where we were still trying to perfect our current operations while simultaneously tackling something new, which rarely works. 

A prime example of this was when we tried to move upmarket, targeting larger customers, while also expanding internationally. This led to one of our fundamental mistakes in international expansion—we went after big customers right from the start in new markets. The reality was that we didn't fully know how to handle that yet, and we also neglected building the foundation of our SMB (small and medium-sized business) base in those markets. In hindsight, one of the key reasons for our success in the UK was that we had a solid base of small business customers to build on. But in our international markets, we lacked that foundation because we started by chasing larger clients. That's just one example, but it underscores the importance of focus.

What were some of your biggest mistakes?

Another big mistake we made was over-hiring—bringing in too many people too soon. It often felt like we were trying to build for the stage after the next, rather than just focusing on the immediate one. 

We’d think, "we need to create this massive function," so we’d hire a big leader and build a large team around them, before solving the initial problems we were facing. That pattern of trying to scale prematurely led to many challenges.

What does success look like for you as a founder, and for the company?

As a founder, I’d love to see GoCardless outgrow me and continue being successful and achieving things I never thought possible without my involvement. That, to me, would be the sign of having built something truly lasting.

I think true success will only come when we are genuinely self-sustaining. It's not that building a business is easy—far from it—but I don’t believe you’ve really built something successful until it can stand on its own. If you're just burning through other people's money to scale, but the business can't sustain itself, then all you're really doing is spending money, which is easy. That's why profitability is so important—it's a testament that you've built something of value and something sustainable.

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