Fast, a startup that provides one-click checkout for ecommerce sellers a la Amazon and has expanded into identity and other areas, has raised $102 million in a series B round led by major payments provider Stripe and investment firm Addition, bringing the company’s total raise to $124 million.
Other participants included existing investors Index Ventures, Susa Ventures, Sugar Capital and Jaren Glover. Stripe provides the underlying payments platform for Fast. It was co-founded by Domm Holland, an Australian entrepreneur, and Allison Barr Allen, formerly Uber’s head of global product operations. Holland described Fast as “one-click checkout for the entire internet.”
Allen said the company helps merchants create an Amazon-like checkout experience while maintaining a firmer grip on the customer relationship. Major competitors include PayPal, Ayden and Worldpay.
Like other checkout providers, Fast lets consumers store personal information to remove checkout friction on any site where it is enabled.
“People say they love Amazon, but often don’t say why,” said Allen, who helped Uber scale its Instant Pay tool for drivers. “Thinking deeper, they have all this payment and shipping information stored. We want to equip businesses that are looking to build a direct relationship, who know who their customers are, and provide more transparency than they have on Amazon.”
Allen said in addition to enabling one-click ordering, Fast is investing in elements of the post-purchase experience, including delivery tracking and status updates, and providing a dashboard of purchase history. The company is also looking to support returns and refunds, a huge pain point for ecommerce.
Fast is currently integrated with ecommerce platforms Woo Commerce and BigCommerce, and Allen said the company is working on direct API hooks for other major platform providers in the near future.
“We’re the only solution that’s on the product page,” she said. “A shopper looks at the product, hits a Fast checkout button, and they don’t have to go through ‘add to cart.’ On sites using Fast, companies have seen 20% of transactions processed immediately with our optimized checkout form.”
With the new funding, Fast is actively scaling its sales and go-to-market strategy, Allen said. Recent hires include executives from Yelp and Adobe. The company works mainly with SMBs but is building out its enterprise sales team and working directly with agencies through partnerships.