Adyen Adds New Funding From Iconiq, Values Dutch Payment Group At $2.3B

Adyen, a payment startup based in Amsterdam that provides services for companies like Facebook, Uber and Netflix, made waves last year when it announced a $250 million Series B that valued it at $1.5 billion. Now less than a year later, Adyen is adding more to its coffers: it has closed another round of funding, this time with a valuation of $2.3 billion.

This latest injection comes from a single investor, Iconiq Capital, which is perhaps best known for investing in a range of tech companies on behalf of clients like Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and Jack Dorsey. Iconiq is not disclosing the amount of this round but from what we understand it is in the double-digit millions and comes after “years” of conversations.

(We have contacted Divesh Makan, who heads Iconiq and led the investment in Adyen, for more information and will update as we learn more.)

Adyen, which was founded in 2006, has quietly — and modestly, with that $250 million round last year coming after raising only $16 million in the previous eight years — built a business around a mixture of payment services. They include seamlessly combining, online, offline and mobile transactions and refunds; cross-border payments and analytics services to track what is selling and where.

That combination has proven to be fairly unique and in demand. “Payments in the U.S. are good, but if you look at payment services for global merchants, the list is pretty thin,” says Pieter van der Does, Adyen’s CEO and co-founder. “Our promise is that we have all kinds of payments services covered with one contract.”

Van der Does says that Adyen has been profitable since 2011 and plans to make $45 million in profit in 2015. He also says the company is on target to double revenues this year, and is currently sitting on an annualized value of more than $45 billion in transactions processed, up 80 percent since December.

These numbers are what he emphasizes in interviews over the company’s valuation. “We are not keen on looking at where we stand in a leaderboard of unicorns,” he says bluntly.

Given Adyen’s growth and profitability, Adyen did not raise this round to run the business, but to expand it. Or as Van der Does puts it: “It was not something that we needed to do, but something that we wished to do, an opportunity and a vote of confidence.”

Specifically, while the company today says it works with seven of the 10 largest Internet firms in the U.S., it wants to fill out that list further (one notable absence from Adyen’s client roster: Apple). This is where new relationship with Iconiq — which itself has deep connections with area executives — will come in handy.

Another area where some of the investment may go is in building up Adyen’s wider presence in the Bay Area, potentially by way of acquisitions.

“Today, you can see that there are many payment companies that are not profitable so I expect a certain shakeout,” Van der Does says.

He adds that acquisitions for Adyen are less about acquiring new technology, which can become tricky to integrate when not built from the ground up. “We look specifically at acquisitions that can add interesting teams and customers. But our strength in having one platform is very dear to us, so we’re unlikely to follow a strategy where we end up with 30-50 platforms like some others have.”

Adyen’s growth comes at a time when two other payments companies, First Data and Worldpay, are is gearing up for IPOs. Van der Does says going public is not a route Adyen is considering right now: “We’re not looking at an IPO in the short term,” he says. “The next couple of years will be about expansion, but I wouldn’t exclude going public eventually.”

Existing investors in the company include General Atlantic, Temasek, Index Ventures, and Felicis Ventures.