FinTech Payaut Raises $8.6M From Google’s Gradient Ventures

Dutch FinTech Payaut has closed an 8 million euros ($8.6 million) seed funding round led by Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI-focused venture fund, along with participation from past investors LocalGlobal and Entrée Capital.

According to a company news release Wednesday (April 13), the company will use the funding to expand its operations in Europe with the launch of a multicurrency platform. Payaut said this tool will let customers accept payments in currencies such as USD, GBP, JPY and AUD.

“By expanding beyond EUR payments, Payaut will also be positioned to enter markets outside of Europe,” the release said. “Payaut plans to begin its expansion drive by increasing its presence in Germany, Southern Europe and the Nordics.”

Founded in 2019, Payaut offers automatic payments for online platforms and marketplaces, as well as solutions such as reconciliation, balance management, invoicing, seller verification through know-your-customer (KYC) checks and split payments.

Read more: Google-Backed Factor Raises $6M in Seed Funding

The company bills itself as “an intermediary between sellers and payment service providers (PSPs),” which means marketplaces can use multiple providers such as Mollie, Adyen, PayPal or Stripe at the same time instead of being constrained to just one.

In addition to bolstering its platform, Payaut said it will use the funding to increase its team from 25 to 40 employees over the next year.

Anna Patterson, Gradient Ventures’ managing partner, said that payment gateway-agnostic payments are still a major need for eCommerce companies and marketplaces.

“In the past, marketplaces and eCommerce companies built split payment systems in-house or were tied to a payment gateway solution. With Payaut, small and medium-size enterprises are empowered to handle KYC/AML, split payments, and multi-PSP configurations themselves,” said Anna Patterson, Managing Partner at Gradient Ventures. “We’re excited to support Ernst and his team as they make this crucial technology more widely available.”

Past funding projects for Gradient include their December 2021 backing of supply chain payments and order management platform Factor, a $6 million investment the company said it would use to build its inventory financing tool.