Finix raises $75M to take on Stripe as a payment processor
For years, Finix has been slowly chipping away at Stripe – which handles payments for millions of businesses. But after previously helping companies set up internal payment systems of their own, the startup officially became a payment processor in 2023, just like Stripe. Now Finix is gearing up for its biggest push against the fintech giant yet.
In an interview with TechCrunch, CEO and founder Richie Serna says becoming a payment processor was “hugely transformational” for the business, and a main driver of its $75 million fundraise, which it announced on Thursday.
Serna says Finix has quadrupled its revenue in the last year, though he declined to share its true number of merchants. However, he told TechCrunch in 2022 that Finix was supporting more than 12,000 merchants and says Finix closed more deals in 2024 than in the company’s entire history — so Finix could have more than 24,000 merchants today.
That’s still a long way off from the customer base of Stripe, who Finix directly competes with — at least if you ask Sequoia Capital. The venture firm led Finix’s $35 million Series B round in 2020, only to walk away from the investment weeks later after determining a conflict of interest with Stripe, which it also backed. Finix got to keep the money but lost Sequoia as a backer.
