British payments company GoCardless has secured $95m in new funding, bringing the company to near unicorn status with a $970m valuation.

GoCardless’ latest round now stands as one of the biggest of 2020, with the latest funding set to be used to expand the platform, which allows customers to set up direct debits to businesses using their bank account details rather than through credit cards or bank transfers. 

The Series F funding round, led by BainCapital, brings the total raised by the company to $240m and comes amidst a flurry of fintech funding rounds throughout December. 

This month has seen a number of fintech companies secure funding, including Cleo’s $44m funding round, a $30m funding round for Zilch and the £60m raised by Monzo earlier in the month. 

More broadly, fintech has maintained its crown as the most funded of any industry in Europe this year, with $9.4bn invested in total so far, according to Dealroom.

GoCardless had a difficult start to the year, laying off staff and announcing cuts to salaries across its 400-person team in the wake of Covid.

But overall, it says it benefited from a surge in online payments during the pandemic, seeing 46% year-on-year growth and 100% increase in new bookings across 2020.

The company had initially focused on small businesses but has expanded to larger corporations, including Docusign. It has also doubled down on the growing subscription economy, with companies like Brompton Bike Hire using the platform to receive payments from its subscribed customers. 

“We’re seeing strong early results as GoCardless moves beyond SMBs to serve mid-market and enterprise customers and expands its international footprint to address a growing need for bank debit processing,” says Matt Harris, partner at Bain Capital Ventures, which led GoCardless’ $95m funding round. 

Freya Pratty covers news at Sifted. She tweets from @FPratty