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SumUp
SumUp, co-founded by Daniel Klein in 2012, serves 4M merchants across 35 markets with card readers and payment software. Raised $1.5B; privately held.
SumUp
SumUp was founded in Berlin in 2012 by Daniel Klein, Marc-Alexander Christ, Jan Deepen, and Stefan Jeschonnek. The founders set out to simplify card acceptance for micro-merchants who were historically locked out of traditional acquiring bank relationships. Early backers included Groupon co-founder Lefteris Ntouanoglou, and the firm scaled quickly by distributing its first card readers through a direct-sales model in Germany, Austria, and the UK before expanding into Southern Europe and Latin America. SumUp operates a vertically integrated payments stack — it owns its acquiring licenses, its hardware supply chain for card readers and point-of-sale terminals, and its merchant-cash-advance underwriting engine. Unlike peer-to-peer payment apps, SumUp's revenue is tied to physical card-present transactions, with take rates on both per-transaction fees and hardware margins. The firm has demonstrated an appetite for M&A in adjacent categories, acquiring London-based POS software provider Goodtill in 2020, Italian mobile payments firm ShopPot in 2022, and SaaS loyalty platform Fivestars in 2021. Its geographic footprint now covers most of the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Brazil. In private credit markets, SumUp secured a $100 million credit facility from Victory Park Capital in 2022 to expand its merchant cash-advance product (per AltFi, 2022). SumUp has raised over $1.5 billion in disclosed financing across a mix of equity and debt rounds, with its most recent primary equity raise reported at a €8 billion valuation in 2022 (per Reuters, June 2022). Investors include Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and Temasek. February 2024: SumUp raised €285 million in a round led by Sixth Street Growth, with proceeds earmarked for continued European expansion, product development, and strategic M&A (per the firm, February 2024). The firm maintains hubs in London, Berlin, São Paulo, and New York, with a global workforce estimated between 1,500 and 3,000. The co-founders have not announced a succession plan or path to an IPO, and the firm does not disclose aggregated assets under management — it reports capital raised and merchant count as its primary North Star metrics. SumUp's structural differentiator lies in its acquiring-license architecture. By holding its own direct acquiring licenses across multiple EU member states under the supervision of the Central Bank of Ireland, SumUp avoids reliance on third-party acquirers like Stripe or Adyen for core settlement flows — a posture that gives it greater margin control and regulatory flexibility than peers who white-label another processor's acquiring rails. This license stack allows it to underwrite merchant risk independently and to optimize fee structures at the country level, a design choice that shapes both its unit economics and its defensibility against payment-facilitator-only competitors.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2012
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
Europe
Country
United Kingdom
City
London
Corporate office
London, United Kingdom
Additional offices
Berlin · São Paulo · New York
Principals
Daniel Klein
Co-Founder
Marc-Alexander Christ
Co-Founder
Hermione McKee
Chief Financial Officer
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment or strategic decisions at SumUp?
SumUp is led by its co-founders and an appointed executive team, including CFO Hermione McKee, who joined in 2022. Strategic decisions, including M&A and fundraising, are made by the co-founders in conjunction with the board, which includes representatives from Bain Capital Tech Opportunities and Sixth Street Growth. No single principal is designated as chief investment officer, reflecting the firm's operating-company structure rather than a family-office or fund-manager architecture.
How does SumUp source its deal flow for merchant cash advances?
SumUp underwrites merchant cash advances using its own transaction-processing data, which gives it visibility into the daily sales volumes of its merchant base. The firm does not source these lending opportunities through external brokers or loan marketplaces; rather, offers are extended in-app to existing SumUp merchants based on proprietary risk models. By keeping underwriting and capital provision internal, SumUp captures both the payment-processing fee stream and the interest-and-fee income from advances.
Is SumUp structured as a payments company or a fintech lender?
SumUp operates primarily as a payments company that also offers lending. The core revenue driver is transaction processing through its card readers and point-of-sale software. Merchant cash advances represent a secondary, balance-sheet-light product line funded through dedicated credit facilities from institutions like Victory Park Capital. The firm is not a bank and does not take deposits — its lending is strictly tied to existing merchant-payment activity on its platform.
Does SumUp participate in fund commitments or only operate as an operator?
SumUp is an operating company, not an asset manager. It does not make fund commitments, nor does it invest in external venture funds or private equity vehicles as part of a treasury strategy. Its capital allocation is directed entirely toward organic product development, hardware manufacturing, geographic expansion, and targeted M&A in the SMB payments and loyalty-software space.
Which markets does SumUp explicitly avoid or underweight?
SumUp has historically avoided markets where it cannot hold its own acquiring license, favoring direct regulatory relationships over partnership models. It has limited presence in Asia-Pacific beyond nascent tests and has not entered the United States for card-present acquiring, despite maintaining a New York office. Brazil is its primary non-European market, licensed through local regulatory pathways.
How does SumUp's acquiring-license structure affect its margin profile?
By holding direct acquiring licenses with the Central Bank of Ireland and other EU national competent authorities, SumUp eliminates the acquiring markup that payment facilitators typically pay to third-party acquirers like Worldpay or Elavon. This vertical integration allows SumUp to control a larger share of the merchant discount rate on each transaction, which in turn funds its merchant cash-advance underwriting and hardware subsidy programs.
What is SumUp's known posture on an IPO?
SumUp has not announced IPO plans. In public comments and interviews, the co-founders have emphasized a long-term approach to building the business independent of public market pressures. The firm's most recent primary round in 2024 valued it at roughly €8 billion post-money, making it one of Europe's largest private fintech companies, but secondary share sales and debt raises have kept the company well-capitalized without a near-term listing catalyst.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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