GoCardless is lining up a move to Hylo, one of Shoreditch’s newest office towers, following dramatic growth in the business.
EG understands that the London-based payments company is about to go under offer on 75,000 sq ft at the building on Bunhill Row, EC1, which is owned by CIT Group.
The deal would roughly double GoCardless’ office space in the capital, as the company looks to move out of its offices at Sutton Yard, a nearby refurbished office block in Clerkenwell, EC1.
It would also make GoCardless the latest tech company to significantly expand its office space in the City fringe, following the likes of TikTok, Snapchat and Depop earlier this year.
EG understands that the fintech company was previously in the running to sign a similar-sized lease at Bloom, HB Reavis’ upcoming office building in Farringdon, EC1. However, when Snapchat emerged as a frontrunner for that space it was forced to look elsewhere.
Hylo contains 285,000 sq ft of offices over 28 stories, and 17,000 sq ft of retail space. The angular tower features 11,000 sq ft of outside terraces across four floors, high-tech air filtration and temperature-regulation, as well as a cafe and wellbeing facilities.
GoCardless, which launched in 2011, aims to help businesses collect invoices and make recurring payments using technology built on top of existing global banking systems. It has enjoyed rapid growth in the last year with its payment processing platform, which processes $20bn (£14.7bn) in transactions a year, benefitting from a huge increase in online payments during the pandemic.
In December 2020, it completed a $95m funding round led by the venture capital arm of Bain Capital, valuing the firm at more than $970m and building on 46% year-on-year revenue growth.
It was co-founded by Matt Robinson, founder of estate agency start-up Nested, Tom Blomfeld, the English entrepreneur who later went on to found challenger bank Monzo, and former McKinsey analyst Hiroki Takeuchi, who has stayed on as CEO.
GoCardless also has offices in Paris, Munich, Melbourne, San Francisco, and New York City. Its investors include Adams Street Partners, Accel Partners, Bain Capital, Balderton Capital, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Notion Capital, Passion Capital, Salesforce Ventures, and Y Combinator.
A GoCardless spokesperson said: “As a high-growth business we are currently exploring a number of options to accommodate our adaptive working model.”
Cushman & Wakefield, BNP Paribas Real Estate and Compton are joint leasing agents for the building; HBC Real Estate is acting for GoCardless.
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