Payments startup Checkout.com was once the most valuable startup in Europe, garnering a $40 billion valuation thanks to deals with Binance and other crypto exchanges. But after the London-based fintech cut its contract with Binance over money laundering concerns, its revenues have slumped, dropping by 16% to $212 million, according to new corporate filings for Checkout’s U.K arm.
Checkout blamed the drop in revenue “primarily by the termination of a large merchant initiated by the company” in the filing with the U.K.’s Companies House registry. That entity was not named in the filings but Forbes first reported in 2023 that Checkout warned Binance it would stop processing credit card payments for the crypto exchange because of regulatory scrutiny.
Checkout’s Chief Marketing Officer Rory O’Neill said that the company did not comment on business relationships with any of its merchants, and e-commerce and fintech clients rather than crypto were now its primary focus.
The crypto exchange was once Checkout’s largest customer. It processed around $2 billion in Binance transactions during a single month in 2021, according to a person with direct knowledge. That set up Checkout to raise a $1 billion round in January 2022, making its founder Guillaume Pousaz, one of Europe’s richest men.
Binance threatened legal action against Checkout in the wake of the split but months later its founder Changpeng Zhao pled guilty to money laundering offenses and resigned as CEO in November 2023. Binance paid a $4.3 billion fine to the U.S.’s Department of Justice while Zhao paid a $50 million fine and was sentenced to four months in jail.
One of Checkout’s largest investors, mutual fund giant Franklin Templeton, has since slashed its valuation of the company to just $11.6 billion, according to SEC filings. Checkout’s corporate structure makes discerning its financial health difficult: The startup is owned by a holding company in the British-controlled tax haven of Jersey, and earns revenue through around 30 associated companies around the world. Blurring the picture further, it transferred some of its assets and “intellectual property” to a new U.K.-based sister company Checkout Technology Limited last year.
These U.K. arms are only part of the larger Checkout group, but their filings show that combined losses mounted to $258 million from $176.6 million in 2022. Checkout Technology also took out a $200 million loan secured by shares in its Jersey parent company to shore up its balance sheet.
“As a privately held company, we choose not to publish our global results, this is common practice,” said Checkout spokesperson O’Neill. We can confirm that the UK is only a fraction of our global business and that in 2024, the group continued to grow globally by 40% year over year.”
One of the largest line items on Checkout’s balance sheet is its wage bill. Even after several rounds of layoffs and executive departures, its two U.K. arms still have over 1,100 employees and a $159.1 million wage bill, down around 25% from 2022. Checkout said it now had over 1,700 staff globally despite axing several of its international offices last year.
Company updates and corporate filings indicate that most of Checkout’s leadership has left the company in the last 18 months. Wolfgang Bardorf resigned as treasurer in September 2023, followed by chief compliance officer Michael Weigand, CTO Ott Kaukver and chief people officer Kerry Van Voris in December 2023. Checkout’s COO Céline Dufétel departed in June 2024, according to The Financial Times, while CFO Nirupam Sinha left the company last month, according to a company blog post.
Corporate filings for the business also show that Checkout’s Swiss billionaire founder Pousaz relocated back to the U.K. from the United Arab Emirates in 2023. Forbes previously reported that Pousaz established a charitable foundation also in the tax haven of Jersey in 2023, and set up a family office Zinal Growth in 2021. According to the filings, he “continues to be considered the ultimate controlling party of Checkout.”
