Fintech’s latest unicorn: Who is PPRO?

Following a US$180m burst of investment, local payments infrastructure provider PPRO has officially attained unicorn status (valued in excess of $1bn).

Founded in 2006 and based in London, UK, PPRO is dedicated to facilitating consumers’ preferred local payment methods via an integrated platform.

Since its inception, the company has proven itself a valuable operator in the cross-border payments space, enabling the growth of other prominent platforms - including Citi, Mollie and PayPal - around the world.

The company has also become a noticeably attractive prospect for investors; approximately six months ago in August 2020, it announced the closure of a $50m funding round. Both instances featured Sprints Capital as a named investor.

Integrating payments on a single platform

PPRO’s platform is notable for integrating gateway, acquirer and processor elements. Capable of managing the entire transaction process, funds can be transferred smoothly across the entire value chain.

Flexible, scaleable and engineered in-house to meet the company’s high quality standards, its solutions are backed up by a 24/7 TechOps team and suite of dedicated services that perform the “heavy lifting” for the client. The full list of its capabilities includes:

• Processing
• Acquiring
• Collection
• Reconciliation and reporting
• Settlement
• Actionable advice

Achieving milestones and customer growth

In another display of fintech prospering even under the duress of COVID-19, PPRO’s Q4 transaction volume in 2020 represented a 100% year-on-year increase. It also managed to grow its global team by 60% over 12 months and expand into new territories, such as Singapore and Indonesia. The $180m fund injection will fuel the continuation of this work.

Simon Black, CEO, commented: “I am very proud of what the PPRO team has accomplished. Beyond securing the support of such prestigious investors and achieving a milestone valuation, we’ve enabled our customers to grow at record numbers during what has been a tough time for many.

“Our unique local payments infrastructure empowers our customers to quickly increase their global footprint. This investment will help us deliver the highest performance possible for companies leading the global payments industry.”

Image source: PPRO