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Rather than offering a third-party payments processing solution like Stripe or Square, Finix wants to help businesses control their own payments stack.
San Francisco-based payments infrastructure platform Finix announced that it has raised $35m in Series B funding, led by Sequoia Capital.
There was additional participation in the funding round from Acrew Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, Activant Capital and Inspired Capital, among others.
Finix, which was founded in 2015 by Richie Serna and Sean Donovan, will use the funding to invest in expanding its product and engineering teams.
The company said that this expansion will allow it accelerate product innovation and meet the growing demand for embedded payments solutions. To date, Finix has raised more than $55m.
So, what exactly is Finix?
The company was founded after Serna and Donovan combined their software development and payments expertise to come up with a new way for software companies to own their payments stack, and is positioned as a competitor to the likes of Stripe.
The start-up targets businesses that process at least $50m in annual transactions. It is attempting to differentiate itself from Stripe, Square or PayPal, which charge merchants between 2.7pc and 2.9pc per transaction, along with other fees.
Finix, on the other hand, makes its money through a monthly licensing fee and other surcharges such as an onboarding fee. The company said that prior to the launch of Finix, software companies had to rely on third-party payments service providers, or commit to building their own payments infrastructure.
Finix said: “In a world where the best product wins, mastering the payments experience is a strategic imperative and third-party payment service providers’ solutions no longer cut it. Just as Marqeta made it easy to issue cards and Plaid made it easy to access account information, Finix is making it easy to own payments.”
‘Full control over the payment stack’
Serna, who serves as CEO of Finix, added: “We’re only just beginning to see what amazing experiences can be built when companies begin designing payments deeply into their user experience rather than treating it as a bolt-on.
“Every day, our customers prove to us they are able to build superior product experiences that delight both consumers and merchants when they have full control over their payment stacks. We envision a world where companies give just as much love and attention to the flow of money as the other elements of the product experience.”
Finix said that its payments solution enables growing companies to own, manage and monetise their entire payments experience, while offering custom tools and insights to “open up new opportunities for customer experience innovation”.
The start-up’s customers include Passport Labs, Kabbage, Lightspeed POS and Clubessential.
