5 ms·

Payhawk is officially Bulgaria’s first unicorn

104 points by zhan_eg 5y ago

dgellow 5y ago
Not to diminish their success, but isn’t it odd to have this concept of unicorn based on a fixed threshold? Due to inflation, isn’t reaching a valuation of 1 billion $ in 2022 vastly different from 1 billion $ in 2009?
Nursie 5y ago
Let’s hope this story ends better than London’s mid-10s unicorn, Powa Technologies…
slavoingilizov 5y ago
I'm so happy to read this (a proud Bulgarian). The founders are amazing! We need more examples like these in Eastern Europe that can promote and create an environment for entrepreneurs.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  Definitely. I hope Bulgaria and Romania rise up from just being seen as cheap outsourcing hubs and tax havens. And I hope our governments become less corrupt and incompetent so that our talent doesn't feel the need to move West, although this seems more difficult to solve than the tech hub part.
  - ReaLNero 5y ago
    It's not just about government corruption. Time zones, labor laws, less entrepreneurial mindsets are examples of reasons why there's brain drain from Sweden, Germany, UK to US.
LeonM 5y ago
Can't help to notice that all of [european_country]'s first unicorns are payment service providers. Scalapay (it), Adyen (nl), now Payhawk. And probably a few more that I'm missing here.
- simiones 5y ago
  For what it's worth, Romania's (UiPath) was not, they were a UI automation company. It doesn't detract from the pattern, but it does show it's not the only thing that has worked.
- gostsamo 5y ago
  Few years ago the EU adopted a manditory api standard for all of its banks. This, together with the lack of really big big banks and payment providers on the market, might've helped with opening the space to newcomers.
  - Jommi 5y ago
    It hasn't been fully adapted at all yet though.
- krageon 5y ago
  Payment services (if you wanted them to work) were for a long time predominantly US-based. I'm very happy this is changing.
- cleancoder0 5y ago
  Croatia's first unicorn was Infobip, one of the world's largest providers of A2P SMS services.
- Hanschri 5y ago
  Klarna (SE) is pretty big too.
- phphphphp 5y ago
  I’ll take a somewhat contrarian view to the other comments. There’s definitely a great deal of room for payment service providers outside the US so I don’t mean to discredit Payhawk’s success (I know nothing about them — they could be wonderful with a long life ahead) but Europe is going through somewhat of a FinTech bubble, a lot of these companies have very shaky futures when capital dries up. I don’t know if it’s a consequence of Stripe’s success, cryptocurrency induced finance obsession, the low barrier to entry… or a combination, but it’s a very frothy market here.
giorgioz 5y ago
> https://payhawk.com https://payhawk.com offers 3% cashback on card payments up to the full amount of your subscription. So they seem to offer corporate cards to at least in UK, Germany and Spain. There are 2 public plans at €149/mo and €299/mo. Does that mean that they will offer up to 3% cashback until you reach the 149€/mo or 299€/mo? In that case you are not really getting a cashback but getting their service for free if you spend enough... COMPETITORS I KNOW OF: https://wise.com https://wise.com offers free business bank accounts with pre-paid cards in a LOT of countries (US and EU and many more) https://mercury.com https://mercury.com offers free business bank accounts with pre-paid cards in the US. https://airbase.com https://airbase.com offers free cash back business credit cards but not accounts (it can be paired with mercury.com or wise.com for the bank accounts) in the US.
pjmlp 5y ago
Really? What about Telerik? Not paying attention it seems.
- gostsamo 5y ago
  Telerik is no longer a bulgarian company. They were bought by Progress years ago. Edit: grammar and spelling
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    It looks like a sucessful acquisition to me, and its founders.
    - emteycz 5y ago
      But for 1/4 of what unicorn should be.
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        In what year?
        gostsamo 5y ago
        2014
- slavoingilizov 5y ago
  (I worked at Telerik until 2014). They were acquired by Progress software later that year for $262m, so no longer independent nor a unicorn. Still one of the biggest successes. The Payhawk founders are ex-Telerik and Telerik has made a major influence on the Bulgarian startup ecosystem.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    That makes Payhawk not the first one, which was my point.
artemonster 5y ago
I am out of the loop: why we need so many payment processors? Why they can raise so much money and immediately valued so high? What is that they provide so valuable what is not provided anywhere else?
- xgb84j 5y ago
  I was wondering the same thing! I always assumed that payment processing was one of the most "winner-takes-it-all" business models out there.
  - heftig 5y ago
    I guess one reason is that initial growth of online service providers (and especially payment processing) is often driven by sex-related use, e.g. sex work or art. If the provider becomes "mainstream enough", these uses then get banned to satisfy investors, key customers and upstream services, driving the demand to the next startups. PS: Or rather, were always banned from the start, but enforcement was lax until they were no longer an important part of the customer base.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- m12k 5y ago
  I think it means the existing payment market is so massively profitable that you can undercut them and still make a killing.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- urthor 5y ago
  It's not about marginal utility, it's about the revenue model. Very easy to monetize a payments platform.
- seer 5y ago
  I don't think Payhawk are a payment processor, they use MasterCard under the hood. They are more like aggregator and analytics for corporate payment accounts.
beebeepka 5y ago
This just shows how out of the loop I am. Never heard of this company.
bruhhh 5y ago
- avtolik 5y ago
  It's posted in some Bulgarian dev forums and groups, and people are coming here and upvoting it, I think.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
drexlspivey 5y ago
Similar recent news: Italy gets its first unicorn as Scalapay raises $497m from Tencent [1] JP Morgan Viva Wallet Deal Creates Greece’s First FinTech Unicorn [2] Seems like the easiest path to unicorn status is to create a country’s first mobile wallet/payment processor [1] https://sifted.eu/articles/italy-first-unicorn-scalapay-tencent-series-b/ https://sifted.eu/articles/italy-first-unicorn-scalapay-tenc... [2] https://greekreporter.com/2022/02/01/jp-morgan-viva-wallet-greece/ https://greekreporter.com/2022/02/01/jp-morgan-viva-wallet-g...
miglen 5y ago
Excited to be part of the Bulgarian startup history! Disclaimer: I work for the company and we are hiring across Europe: payhawk.com/careers Congrats to Italy for Scalapay!
- tamiral 5y ago
  chestito!!!

104 points by zhan_eg 5y ago

Not to diminish their success, but isn’t it odd to have this concept of unicorn based on a fixed threshold? Due to inflation, isn’t reaching a valuation of 1 billion $ in 2022 vastly different from 1 billion $ in 2009?

Nursie 5y ago

Let’s hope this story ends better than London’s mid-10s unicorn, Powa Technologies…

slavoingilizov 5y ago

I'm so happy to read this (a proud Bulgarian). The founders are amazing! We need more examples like these in Eastern Europe that can promote and create an environment for entrepreneurs.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
Definitely. I hope Bulgaria and Romania rise up from just being seen as cheap outsourcing hubs and tax havens. And I hope our governments become less corrupt and incompetent so that our talent doesn't feel the need to move West, although this seems more difficult to solve than the tech hub part.
- ReaLNero 5y ago
  It's not just about government corruption. Time zones, labor laws, less entrepreneurial mindsets are examples of reasons why there's brain drain from Sweden, Germany, UK to US.

LeonM 5y ago

Can't help to notice that all of [european_country]'s first unicorns are payment service providers. Scalapay (it), Adyen (nl), now Payhawk. And probably a few more that I'm missing here.

simiones 5y ago
For what it's worth, Romania's (UiPath) was not, they were a UI automation company. It doesn't detract from the pattern, but it does show it's not the only thing that has worked.
gostsamo 5y ago
Few years ago the EU adopted a manditory api standard for all of its banks. This, together with the lack of really big big banks and payment providers on the market, might've helped with opening the space to newcomers.
- Jommi 5y ago
  It hasn't been fully adapted at all yet though.
krageon 5y ago
Payment services (if you wanted them to work) were for a long time predominantly US-based. I'm very happy this is changing.
cleancoder0 5y ago
Croatia's first unicorn was Infobip, one of the world's largest providers of A2P SMS services.
Hanschri 5y ago
Klarna (SE) is pretty big too.
phphphphp 5y ago
I’ll take a somewhat contrarian view to the other comments. There’s definitely a great deal of room for payment service providers outside the US so I don’t mean to discredit Payhawk’s success (I know nothing about them — they could be wonderful with a long life ahead) but Europe is going through somewhat of a FinTech bubble, a lot of these companies have very shaky futures when capital dries up. I don’t know if it’s a consequence of Stripe’s success, cryptocurrency induced finance obsession, the low barrier to entry… or a combination, but it’s a very frothy market here.

giorgioz 5y ago

> https://payhawk.com https://payhawk.com offers 3% cashback on card payments up to the full amount of your subscription. So they seem to offer corporate cards to at least in UK, Germany and Spain. There are 2 public plans at €149/mo and €299/mo. Does that mean that they will offer up to 3% cashback until you reach the 149€/mo or 299€/mo? In that case you are not really getting a cashback but getting their service for free if you spend enough... COMPETITORS I KNOW OF: https://wise.com https://wise.com offers free business bank accounts with pre-paid cards in a LOT of countries (US and EU and many more) https://mercury.com https://mercury.com offers free business bank accounts with pre-paid cards in the US. https://airbase.com https://airbase.com offers free cash back business credit cards but not accounts (it can be paired with mercury.com or wise.com for the bank accounts) in the US.

pjmlp 5y ago

Really? What about Telerik? Not paying attention it seems.

gostsamo 5y ago
Telerik is no longer a bulgarian company. They were bought by Progress years ago. Edit: grammar and spelling
- pjmlp 5y ago
  It looks like a sucessful acquisition to me, and its founders.
  - emteycz 5y ago
    But for 1/4 of what unicorn should be.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      In what year?
      - gostsamo 5y ago
        2014
slavoingilizov 5y ago
(I worked at Telerik until 2014). They were acquired by Progress software later that year for $262m, so no longer independent nor a unicorn. Still one of the biggest successes. The Payhawk founders are ex-Telerik and Telerik has made a major influence on the Bulgarian startup ecosystem.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  That makes Payhawk not the first one, which was my point.

artemonster 5y ago

I am out of the loop: why we need so many payment processors? Why they can raise so much money and immediately valued so high? What is that they provide so valuable what is not provided anywhere else?

xgb84j 5y ago
I was wondering the same thing! I always assumed that payment processing was one of the most "winner-takes-it-all" business models out there.
- heftig 5y ago
  I guess one reason is that initial growth of online service providers (and especially payment processing) is often driven by sex-related use, e.g. sex work or art. If the provider becomes "mainstream enough", these uses then get banned to satisfy investors, key customers and upstream services, driving the demand to the next startups. PS: Or rather, were always banned from the start, but enforcement was lax until they were no longer an important part of the customer base.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
m12k 5y ago
I think it means the existing payment market is so massively profitable that you can undercut them and still make a killing.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
urthor 5y ago
It's not about marginal utility, it's about the revenue model. Very easy to monetize a payments platform.
seer 5y ago
I don't think Payhawk are a payment processor, they use MasterCard under the hood. They are more like aggregator and analytics for corporate payment accounts.

beebeepka 5y ago

This just shows how out of the loop I am. Never heard of this company.

bruhhh 5y ago

avtolik 5y ago
It's posted in some Bulgarian dev forums and groups, and people are coming here and upvoting it, I think.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

drexlspivey 5y ago

Similar recent news: Italy gets its first unicorn as Scalapay raises $497m from Tencent [1] JP Morgan Viva Wallet Deal Creates Greece’s First FinTech Unicorn [2] Seems like the easiest path to unicorn status is to create a country’s first mobile wallet/payment processor [1] https://sifted.eu/articles/italy-first-unicorn-scalapay-tencent-series-b/ https://sifted.eu/articles/italy-first-unicorn-scalapay-tenc... [2] https://greekreporter.com/2022/02/01/jp-morgan-viva-wallet-greece/ https://greekreporter.com/2022/02/01/jp-morgan-viva-wallet-g...

miglen 5y ago

Excited to be part of the Bulgarian startup history! Disclaimer: I work for the company and we are hiring across Europe: payhawk.com/careers Congrats to Italy for Scalapay!

tamiral 5y ago
chestito!!!