Mollie has closed its €1.1bn acquisition of GoCardless, with more than 90% of the consideration paid in Mollie shares. The price is about half the $2.1bn valuation GoCardless carried after its 2022 Series G, and hands its Balderton, BlackRock and Permira backers equity in the enlarged Dutch group rather than cash.
GoCardless was founded in London in 2011 by Hiroki Takeuchi, Matt Robinson and Tom Blomfield, who later co-founded Monzo. The company built its business on bank-to-bank collection — direct debit first, then open banking — while most of the payments market chased card volumes. Takeuchi, who was paralysed from the chest down after a cycling crash in 2016, has remained chief executive throughout.
Mollie confirmed on 1 September that the deal, first announced in December 2025, has completed. The structure matters more than the headline number. With over 90% of the €1.1bn consideration settled in shares and only a residual slice in cash, GoCardless shareholders have not exited: they have rolled into the combined group's cap table and taken their return in Mollie paper.
That is a marked step down from where the company was priced four years ago. GoCardless raised $312m in a Series G led by Permira in February 2022, with BlackRock participating, at a $2.1bn valuation that made it one of the UK's newer fintech unicorns. Balderton Capital had backed the business from its early rounds. The €1.1bn price implies roughly half that mark in euro terms, a repricing consistent with the broader reset in late-stage fintech valuations since 2022.
The financial trajectory on both sides explains the timing. GoCardless narrowed its pre-tax loss to £24.2m in the year to June 2025, its last published accounts, and has since posted its first profitable quarter following a series of cost reductions. Mollie reached EBITDA profitability in 2024 and reported €147m in net revenue for 2025.
The combined group serves more than 350,000 business customers across over 30 markets. Mollie chief executive Koen Köppen leads it, while GoCardless continues to operate under Takeuchi as "GoCardless, a Mollie company". The product logic pairs Mollie's card and local payment methods with GoCardless's Pay by Bank product, available in 38 countries, alongside accounts and business financing.
Geography is the other half of the rationale. Mollie operates from 12 cities across the European Economic Area; GoCardless brings established positions in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
For the UK ecosystem, the outcome is a familiar one: a home-grown fintech unicorn absorbed by a continental acquirer, with its investors converting a sterling-denominated cap table into shares in a Dutch parent.
Original source: BusinessCloud — https://businesscloud.co.uk/news/mollie-completes-e1-1bn-gocardless-swoop/
