Here’s the pitch deck a 26-year-old dropout used to raise $68 million for his software platform Paddle


Christian Owens Paddle

  • Software billing startup Paddle has raised a $68 million Series C to continue its expansion plans worldwide.
  • Founded in 2012, the company’s latest funding round took place remotely and was led by Silicon Valley fund FTV Capital.
  • “We’ve gone from a land-grab mentality, grow at all costs, to a more sustainable and considered growth plan within the market so we don’t want to just raise for the sake of it,” Paddle CEO Christian Owens told Business Insider.

  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Software billing startup Paddle has raised a £52 million ($68 million) Series C from investors including FTV Capital, Kindred Capital, Notion Capital, and 83North. 

Founded in 2012 by Christian Owens and Harrison Rose when they were just teenagers, Paddle has raised £72 million ($93 million) to-date. Owens dropped out of school to focus on the startup, and neither cofounder went to university.

The company essentially makes it easier for software-as-a-service firms, which rely on regular subscriptions, to bill customers and keep the money coming in. The firm promises to cover payment processing, billing, and sales tax, among other things.

“Successful companies often falter because their neighbors move into enterprise clients and international markets faster,” Owens told Business Insider. “Business growth shouldn’t be held back by infrastructure issues and companies shouldn’t lose out to inferior competitors because they have difficulties with a sales tax in Japan, for example.” 

Paddle claims to have 2,000 software sellers across 245 countries and territories and will use the fresh funding round to double its staff from 140 currently. The company’s growth is riding the wider trend of subscription software booming as a sector with the industry’s value skyrocketing to $105 billion this year, according to Gartner.

“It’s been a very unexpected year,” Owens added. The company didn’t necessarily anticipate a funding round in 2020 given an expected coronavirus-induced slowdown, but Owens said Paddle has subsequently “blown through all of our growth plans for the year.” 

“We planned for the worst and expected a slowdown in buying,” Owens added. “We’ve been very pleasantly surprised in the business which led to us taking calls from investors.”

Fundraising began in April but took a more formal structure in June with Paddle speaking to investors over video call with the round officially closing just over a week ago. Owens said that the round was popular with investors meaning there was “more appetite than there was room.” 

“We’ve always had big ambitions,” he added. “But we’ve gone from a land grab mentality, grow at all costs, to a more sustainable and considered growth plan within the market so we don’t want to just raise for the sake of it.” 

The funding will be used to continue the company’s expansion in the US and globally, as well as further investments in the company’s product, engineering, sales and marketing teams. 

Check out Paddle’s redacted pitch deck below:

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