The Fast and The Furious

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Image Credit: Getty Images, Wachiwit.

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Don’t believe the rumors, Silicon Valley is alive and well.

Just a few months after launching its first product, San-Francisco based startup “Fast” announced a $102 million funding round on Tuesday.

What is Fast? It’s not a weight-loss tool. Instead, Fast helps enable seamless online shopping experiences by letting consumers pay without a “one-click-checkout.” CEO Domm Holland likened Fast to Amazon’s “Buy Now” feature which allows shoppers to avoid visiting the shopping cart altogether.

The valuation was led by Stripe, an online payments behemoth with a reported $100 billion valuation.

The Value Proposition:

is abundantly clear. Internet users tend to get distracted resulting in “abandoned carts,” which — for an eCommerce company — means lost revenue.

But Fast is not alone in wanting to tackle the market opportunity:

  • In late December Bolt, which provides online checkout, identity, and payments services, raised a $75 million extension to its Series C round.
  • In mid-January Checkout.com, which is working on a “one-stop-shop for all things related to payments, raised $450 million at a $15 billion valuation.
  • Just one day after the Checkout.com raise, Rapyd announced it raised $300 million at a $2.5 billion valuation one day later. Rapyd provides fintech services via an API and supports global eCommerce payments.
The Takeaway:

There is gold at the end of the payments rainbow.