1. How did you become a Unicorn?
Christopher Ciabbara (Co-founder
and CTO): “If you look at the strate-
gy of our company you see we work
with two important components; our
strategy and innovative technology.
Revel Systems was the first company
in the world that made it possible to
print receipts from the iPad and the
first to create a system to do pay-
ments with the iPad. From the point
of strategy, we are the sole company
servicing middle and large busines-
ses.”
What is it that you do better than
your competitors?
“The legacy systems that are used for
payments are old, slow, use outdated
technology and aren’t user-friend-
ly. With that knowledge we decided
to develop our product. Entrepre-
neurs can start using Revel Systems
in a matter of seconds; it is easy to
use and the system is fast. While the
rest of the market are doing marke-
ting investments, we are investing in
hard-working technicians. Besides
which we developed a payment sys-
tem that can be used in various in-
dustries.”
What is your vision on the market?
“We want our product to expand in
the world, and at the moment we are
working on expansion to Asia. The
strongest part of the company are
our technicians. We are growing fast,
so we need to hire new people. Our
biggest challenge at the moment is to
hire the right talented people who fit
in our company.”
MOZIDO
Established:
2007
HQ:
Austin, Texas
(United States)
Founders:
Michael Liberty
What it does:
Mozido develops
worldwide mobile
cross-border payment
and loyalty solutions
WWW.MEDIATIC.EU14
How I became a Unicorn
/UNICORNS
We call them unicorns: Fintech companies that were founded after 2000 and are now valuated at 1 billion
dollars or more. Named after the mythological creature, they are just as rare. Nevertheless, we found three of
them and asked how they became a unicorn.
How did you become a Unicorn?
Jacob de Geer (CEO): “Fundamentally
it comes down to a great market and
product fit. Looking across Europe
there are still over 20 million small
businesses that can’t take card pay-
ments. The main reason why a huge
part of the addressable market has
been left untouched is the outdated
business practices employed by tradi-
tional players in this industry. There
are many reasons behind success, but
there is a massive element of luck and
timing that is beyond your control.
One thing you learn when you start a
business from scratch is not to expect
anything.”
What is it that you do better than
your competitors?
“We are the undisputed European and
Latin American leader within our ni-
che. So we’re doing something right.
Broadly speaking, success comes
down to hard work and focus, there’s
no getting away from that. We have a
world-class team and we’re well finan-
ced by some of the world’s best ventu-
re capitalists. We also have the most
experience, and hence more data from
which we can learn what to improve
in terms of our service and the diffe-
rent features we offer.”
What is your vision on the market?
“Our goal is to build a suite of smart
products and services for small busi-
ness. In Sweden, our most mature
market, roughly 50 percent of all
payment terminals are from us. One
of the positive aspects about being a
Swedish company with a limited mar-
ket is that you need to prepare for
expansion the day you start building
your business. This is part of the re-
ason why you see many Swedish tech
companies, such as Spotify, King and
Klarna, being successful right now.”
How did you become a Unicorn?
Mike Love (CEO): “The market we
are operating in is growing rapidly.
We have responded to that trend by
raising capital first and then inves-
ting in the markets that show the
most potential for growth, including
geographies where mobile money is
in high demand. In our early years
we focused on building and funding
our company. Four years ago we
made our entrance in the market.
Because we stepped in at the right
moment, we were able to grow fast.
What is it that you do better than
your competitors?
“Currently, there are many types
of mobile phones and payment so-
lutions. Our product is device-ag-
nostic, so we’ve made it possible to
make mobile payments work on all
kinds of mobile devices, from featu-
re phones to iPhones to Samsung,
for example. The challenge for us
was getting all of these devices to
work together for payments around
the world. We are also one of the few
companies that enable cross-border
payments because our technology is
mobile-first and cloud-based, which
makes ecommerce between foreign
merchants and consumers easier.”
What is your vision on the mar-
ket?
“We want to continue growing glo-
bally. For our product, it is impor-
tant that we introduce it everywhere.
We plan to extend our solution to
other countries where mobile pay-
ments can have an impact on daily
life, especially in developing coun-
tries. The United States is our home-
port, but now we want to expand
our mobile payments ecosystem.”
iZETTLE
Established:
2010
HQ:
Stockholm, Sweden
Founders:
Jacob de Geer en
Magnus Nilsson
What it does:
iZettle develops card
readers and a service
for processing mobile
payments
REVEL
SYSTEMS
Established:
2010
HQ:
San Francisco,
United States
Founders:
Lisa Falzone and
Christopher Ciabarra
What it does:
Revel Systems has
developed an iPad
Point of Sale systems