Failed Payments Startups
59 venture-backed payments startups have shut down after raising $1.5B combined — about 3% of the entire graveyard. The biggest cohort last raised in 2022, and the most common final round was Seed.
Payments looks like software but competes on basis points against entrenched networks. The failures here mostly could not reach the transaction volume where the economics start to work.
The Damage, by the Numbers
$4.2M
Median raised before shutdown
$26.2M
Average raised — the big flameouts drag it up
4
Died holding $100M+ in funding
0
Raised $1B+ and still closed
Class of the crash
Closed payments startups by year of their final funding round
16
29
7
2021
$611.7M
2022
$724.2M
2023
$58.1M
How far they got
Last round raised before shutting down
Pre-Seed
11
Seed
25
Series A
5
Post-IPO
1
Debt & Notes
7
Other
10
Based on the last five years of fundraising data tracked in the VCbacked database.
The Graveyard
Showing 100 of 59 closed startups
Company | Raised | Last Round | What They Did | Location | Founders | Site | Contact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Behalf | $462.0M | Debt | Behalf develops a digital platform that facilitates payments and accelerates cash flow by extending net terms and financing to businesses. | New York, New York, United States | Benjy Feinberg | Reveal | |
Openpay | $299.6M | Post-IPO | Openpay is a fintech company that develops online payment solutions that feature buy now, pay later services. | Melbourne, Victoria, Australia | Marni Meydan | Reveal | |
ParkHub | $119.7M | PE | ParkHub’s fast, reliable, and easy-to-use parking management technology helps operators boost revenue, cut costs, and wow guests. | Dallas, Texas, United States | George Baker Sr. | Reveal | |
Recharge | $118.2M | Debt | Recharge connects brands effortlessly with customers through their unified prepaid platform solutions | Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, The Netherlands | Dirk Ueberbach | Reveal | |
Dash | $86.1M | Debt | Dash builds an alternative payment app where users can send, spend, and receive money, pay for goods and services, save, and invest. | New York, New York, United States | Prince Boakye Boampong | Reveal | |
Waddle | $73.1M | Venture | Waddle is a proprietary technology that leverages analytics from accounting & bank data to provide automated revolving credit lines. | Surry Hills, New South Wales, Australia | Leigh Dunsford | Reveal | |
Tilia | $32.0M | Venture | Tilia is an all-in-one payment platform used by games, virtual world publishers, mobile applications, and NFT providers. | San Francisco, California, United States | — | Reveal | |
Returnly | $30.2M | Venture | Returnly is the provider of digital return experiences for direct-to-consumer brands. | San Francisco, California, United States | Eduardo Vilar | Reveal | |
Wyre | $29.1M | Note | Wyre is a crypto and payment infrastructure company that develops a variety of payment APIs. | San Francisco, California, United States | Ioannis Giannaros | Reveal | |
Regate | $27.5M | Series A | Regate develops a SaaS platform designed to streamline accounting and financial operations. | Paris, Ile-de-France, France | Alexis Renard | Reveal | |
Utopia Labs | $23.0M | Seed | Utopia Labs develops an operating system for DAO to manage payment requests and payroll. | San Francisco, California, United States | Alexander Wu, Jason Chong, Kaito Cunningham, Pryce Adade Yebesi | Reveal | |
Friday Finance | $23.0M | Series A | Friday Finance is a finance management platform that automates financial management for startups and SMBs. | Berlin, Berlin, Germany | Christopher Zemina | Reveal | |
Cushion | $20.2M | Series A | Reimagining the way Americans manage and pay their bills | San Francisco, California, United States | Fazil Mohamood | Reveal | |
Hola Cash | $15.8M | Venture | LatAm’s first CheckoutOS solution. | Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico | — | Reveal | |
Vyne Technologies | $15.5M | Seed | Vyne Technologies is the specialist account-to-account payments platform. | London, England, United Kingdom | Adam Rowland | Reveal | |
Joe | $13.9M | Debt | Joe is a BNPL for consumers that allows ALL expenses to be paid in several installments. | Paris, Ile-de-France, France | Kevin Ohana | Reveal | |
Payaut | $13.0M | Seed | Payaut is the only payment solution for marketplaces that connects with any PSP. | Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, The Netherlands | Ernst Van Niekerk | Reveal | |
KyckGlobal | $12.0M | Venture | SaaS firm with a cloud-based platform featuring 15 integrated payment methods to streamline overhead and optimize the payee experience. | Atlanta, Georgia, United States | Ashish Bahl | Reveal | |
Yoello | $11.3M | Series A | Yoello is a payments platform building infrastructure that connects banks and payment networks to merchants consumers. | Cardiff, Cardiff, United Kingdom | Anton Manley | Reveal | |
Tola | $10.2M | Seed | Tola combines accounts payable, accounts Tola combines accounts payable, receivable, and cash flow management with working capital. | San Francisco, California, United States | Alen Cvisic, Guillaume Simard | Reveal | |
Hopscotch | $9.7M | Seed | Invoicing, bill pay, and cash flow management for small businesses. | New York, New York, United States | Reed Switzer | Reveal | |
Paper | $9.3M | Seed | Paper is a NFT payment startup that offers crypto-focused payments. | San Francisco, California, United States | Edward Sun | Reveal | |
Allied Payment Network | $8.7M | Venture | Allied Payment Network is a fintech company that specializes in payment technology for financial institutions. | Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States | Ralph E. Marcuccilli | Reveal | |
CifraPay | $8.0M | Series A | CifraPay is a fintech company that provides a digital platform for payment solutions to the B2B industry. | Palo Alto, California, United States | Alby - Alberto de Azevedo | Reveal | |
Beam | $7.0M | Venture | Beam is a payment service that uses stablecoins to help people send money globally faster and cheaper. | San Francisco, California, United States | — | Reveal | |
WhenThen | $5.9M | Pre-Seed | No-code payment automations for internet companies. | Dublin, Dublin, Ireland | David Brown | Reveal | |
ComplYant | $5.7M | Seed | ComplYant is a digital tax assistant for entrepreneurs that provide a simple, accurate way to follow tax deadlines. | Los Angeles, California, United States | Shiloh Johnson | Reveal | |
Opto | $5.5M | Seed | Opto is a fintech company focused on supply chain finance and logistics technology. | Berlin, Berlin, Germany | Sebastian Nerz | Reveal | |
Ottopay | $4.5M | Seed | Otto is an Intelligent and automated debt payments. | Los Angeles, California, United States | Andy Burke | Reveal | |
trustshare | $4.2M | Seed | Trustshare fintech layer for marketplaces across payments, escrow, banking, and credit in a single unified API. | London, England, United Kingdom | Joe Harlow | Reveal | |
Rizq | $3.4M | Seed | Rizq is the first fully digital sharia-compliant, ethical account in the UK. | London, England, United Kingdom | Dennis Nemerov | Reveal | |
Ottr Finance | $3.1M | Pre-Seed | Ottr Finance is a Wallet For Everyone. | San Francisco, California, United States | Alexey Zakharov | Reveal | |
Allset | $3.0M | Seed | Automated payments and communications platform for home service businesses. | Bethesda, Maryland, United States | Justin Clegg | Reveal | |
MEALLOGIX | $3.0M | Note | Premier automation software for the meal prep industry | San Diego, California, United States | Katarzyna Rozanna Wojniak | Reveal | |
Peachy Patients | $2.8M | Pre-Seed | Peachy Patients offers a tool designed to make healthcare affordable and accessible to patients. | Los Angeles, California, United States | Lex Oiler | Reveal | |
Zemp Business Solutions AG | $2.8M | Seed | Zemp provides cloud-based mobile point-of-sale and integrated payment software for retail businesses. | Root, Luzern, Switzerland | Oliver Zemp | Reveal | |
Cashero | $2.5M | Seed | Cashero is a blockchain-based instant local & cross-border payment wallet. It offers users multi-currency wallets and USD yields. | Tallinn, Harjumaa, Estonia | Evelyn Wobil | Reveal | |
Lexop | $2.3M | Seed | Removing friction from collections by offering the most customer-centric software-as-a-service to world-class companies. | Montréal, Quebec, Canada | Amir Tajkarimi | Reveal | |
Denario | $2.0M | Seed | Denario is an integrated B2B Payments experience that helps SMBs & Startups improve their cash flow. | Berlin, Berlin, Germany | — | Reveal | |
Kapaga | $2.0M | Seed | Kapaga offers a ranking ecosystem for SMEs trading internationally. | London, England, United Kingdom | Katya Dorofejeva | Reveal | |
Waivr | $1.4M | Pre-Seed | Modernizing the debit payments infrastructure. | Los Angeles, California, United States | Brenna Curran | Reveal | |
Oxalus | $1.1M | Seed | NFT Social Commerce Platform | Singapore, Central Region, Singapore | Nguyen Dang Hieu | Reveal | |
Zuza | $1.1M | Venture | Zuza is a Business Management and POS system software for businesses. | Scottsdale, Arizona, United States | Danny Mikhail | Reveal | |
Nook | $1.1M | Pre-Seed | Nook offering is geared towards delivering simplified SME payments and invoicing solutions. | London, England, United Kingdom | Henry Arnold | Reveal | |
Peepl | $957K | Angel | Peepl is a Fuse Network-powered innovative payments and rewards technology. | Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom | Leon Rossiter | Reveal | |
ROUND | $937K | Crowdfund | ROUND is an in-venue app for table service, collection, and delivery services. | Brighton, East Sussex, United Kingdom | Ethan Martin | Reveal | |
Wallet Engine | $900K | Seed | International gateway for embedded finance | Singapore, Central Region, Singapore | Arish Khajotia | Reveal | |
Platim | $659K | Angel | Platim offers payment solutions to freelancers and the self employed. | Moscow, Moscow City, Russian Federation | Leonid Rumyantsev | Reveal | |
Lucra | $595K | Pre-Seed | End-to-end digital compliance solution for payments | London, England, United Kingdom | Alan Schweber | Reveal | |
Kore Compliance | $525K | Seed | Kore Compliance uses a contemporary payment alternative to cash or cashless ATMs to modernize retail cannabis. | Lincoln, Rhode Island, United States | Ninad Singh | Reveal | |
Protegee | $500K | Pre-Seed | Protegee provides payments API enabling AI voice agents to securely process payments, ensuring compliance, security, and fraud prevention. | San Francisco, California, United States | Kirthi Banothu, Xiaoyu Li | Reveal | |
Zenobia Pay | $500K | Pre-Seed | Zenobia Pay is a fintech company that enables businesses to accept bank transfers as payments by building pay-by-bank network. | New York, New York, United States | Ryan Prendergast | Reveal | |
Dental Dash | $468K | Pre-Seed | B2B SaaS - AI Smart Tasks boosting Dental Offices profitability | Lehi, Utah, United States | David Spencer | Reveal | |
LIZ | $462K | Seed | LIZ is designed to meet each and every renters financial needs. Manage your money, split expenses and save for your future. | State Of Victoria, Victoria, Australia | Baxter Knight | Reveal | |
KometPay | $350K | Pre-Seed | KometPay is a mobile platform for international transfers between the US and LatAm | Miami, Florida, United States | Nicolas Zuleta | Reveal | |
RA Ramba | $340K | Note | Ramba is the ultimate dental savings club for businesses, freelancers, individuals, and families. | New York, New York, United States | Josh Jackson | — | Reveal |
BixBeta Inc | $285K | Seed | Crypto Accounting and Payment Solution Software | New York, New York, United States | Lev Selector | Reveal | |
Apipay | $284K | Seed | Comprehensive solution for electronic payment on premise. | Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland | — | Reveal | |
Bonobo | $250K | Pre-Seed | P2P money transfer, social coin, fintech, dating | Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey | Ali Baran | Reveal |
More From the Graveyard
Frequently Asked Questions
How many payments startups have failed?
The VCbacked Startup Graveyard currently tracks 59 venture-backed payments startups that have shut down, collectively raising $1.5B before closing. That is roughly 3 percent of all closed companies in the database, which is based on the last five years of fundraising data.
What is the biggest payments startup failure?
By total capital raised, the largest payments failure in the database is Behalf, which raised $462.0M before shutting down.
Why do payments startups fail?
Payments looks like software but competes on basis points against entrenched networks. The failures here mostly could not reach the transaction volume where the economics start to work. Across the dataset, the most common last round before shutdown in payments was Seed, and the largest cohort of failures last raised in 2022.
Can I contact founders of failed payments startups?
Founder names are shown free on this page for every closed payments company. VCbacked paid plans reveal verified founder contact details where available and unlock CSV export.