Payments startup Silverflow closes $17 million round led by Coatue

Dutch payments company Silverflow said on Thursday that it has raised a $17 million Series A round led by Coatue Management. 

It will use the money to nearly triple its team from 24 people to 70, for expansion into the US, and to strengthen its balance sheet, according to a press release. 

The fundraise is also backed by previous investors Crane Venture Partners and INKEF Capital, as well as angel investors Jason Gardner, founder and CEO of Marqeta, and Gokul Rajaram, a former Square product lead and current Coinbase board member. 

Silverflow hopes to disrupt the world of back-end banking tech, which it says is predominantly run on legacy platforms that are 30 to 40 years old. It claims to be the first cloud-native card payments platform.

The software gives payment processors, acquirers, and merchants a connection to card networks through APIs.

“The global payments industry is up for renewal, and we’ve built the modern payments processing platform to bring it up to date," said Anne Willem de Vries, CEO and co-founder of Silverflow.

Payments posse

Having launched earlier this year, the startup's customers already include the likes of Deutsche Bank, PayU, and IXOPay.

Silverflow's founding team includes heavyweights from the payments world. Willem de Vries previously focused on card acquiring and processing at Adyen, while chief business development officer Robert Kraal was once Adyen's COO, prior to which he served stints at Worldpay and Bibit. 

“The founder-market fit is the first thing we noted when looking at the Silverflow team," said Michael Gilroy, general partner at Coatue. "The depth of experience within payments gives this team a unique perspective from which to solve a problem plaguing the industry – outdated infrastructure."

The deal was first reported by Insider in October, which cited Silverflow's 13-slide pitch deck.