Fast Secures Funding From Stripe

Fast Secures Funding From Stripe

It’s no surprise to see Fast, a two year old fintech, experiencing an influx of growth over the past year after an additional round of funding was led by Stripe. Fast, a firm based in San Fransisco, has observed rapid growth comparable to Stripe’s own extraordinary growth – a firm which is now on track for a valuation of $100 billion. By injecting Stripe’s initial investment as part of its Series A, Fast put itself on the path that led to their success.

Fast’s $102 million Series B round was initially unofficially reported back in November, by The Information. This number was said to have the potential of reaching upwards of $200 million. Speculation surrounding a possible $1 billion valuation made the rounds not long after Fast was valued at $180 million. However, these theories remain just that, as this fintech has yet to disclose details regarding their post-round valuation. While Stripe may have been Fast’s primary investor, others included Addition, Index Ventures, Jaren Glover (a Robinhood employee), Sugar Capital, and Susa Ventures.

How Fast Works

In an interview Domm Holland, founder and CEO of Fast, explained how Fast operates similarly to the one-click checkout of online retailer Amazon. The startup launched their universal one-click e-commerce purchase product back in September. However, rather than working like a payments method, Fast is more of an “identity network” solution, a “one-click checkout for the entire internet”. Working with Fast Login, Checkout enables customers to make purchases faster, and allows merchants to make quicker sales. These products deliver consistent, stress free experiences, and are compatible with any platform, browser, or device.

After considering the issues surrounding the clumsy process of password and account creation with each e-commerce site, Fast set out to create more of a cohesive experience in order to prevent high bounce rates before checkout. Fast charges sellers a simple transaction fee, to the tune of 3%, in order to process payments. Nevertheless, Fast is far from alone within this market. Various payment wallets such as Google Pay, PayPal Checkout, and Apple, already hold the majority of the market share, while platforms such as Spotify presently integrated similar mechanics into their e-commerce programming.

Fast’s Growth Exceeds Expectations

Back in November Jason Alderman, Fast’s spokesperson, explained how their core product exceeded their “ambitious projections”, in an interview with The Information. Fast experienced a seed round at $2.5 million, and a valuation after their Series A round at just $180 million just a few months later. Having only been founded in March 2019, this start-up launched their core product in September.

CEO and Founder, Domm Holland, previously worked for TV shows The Voice Australia, and Love Island Australia, as in technologist based roles. Earlier on in his career, Holland headed up Dell’s AUD 1.3 million quarter sales target, during his many years in New Zealand at Dell. Among his multitude of ventures in Australia, was a smart tap-to-donate collection terminal network, as well as an on-demand towing platform. Allison Barr Allen, a fellow co-founder, also has mentions of leading global product operations for companies at Uber within her repertoire.