Accelerating Global E-Commerce: Adyen Cofounder Peter Caparso (Part 5)

Sramana: Aside from gaming, what other verticals have you been able to penetrate?

Peter Caparso: We have worked very successfully with software and music downloading, retail, and we are just starting to get into the airline sector. We are negotiating right now with a large airline. We look for global sectors with good reach.

Sramana: What distribution of your current business is U.S. based versus Europe or other parts of the world?

Peter Caparso: Right now it is probably 75 percent European and 25 percent in the U.S., although the U.S. side has the most growth now. In full disclosure all of our developers are housed in the Netherlands. We are building the U.S. team and I am in the process of hiring people now.

Sramana: How large is the team in the Netherlands?

Peter Caparso: We have 40 developers. The company has 50 people total and is very heavy on development. We have eight people in sales, although we are hiring a lot of sales right now, so that is where our growth is at. We also have one administrative person.

Sramana: What has been the revenue ramp of the company?

Peter Caparso: In 2007 we had very little revenue. In 2008 we did about $1.7 million and we did $2.4 million in 2009. This year we are on track to do about $10.2 million dollars.

Sramana: How is the company in terms of profitability?

Peter Caparso: We are profitable.

Sramana: That is great, because it sounds like you did not even use the $20 million that you put into the business.

Peter Caparso: We have invested heavily in the business, but we did not take in any funding outside of what the founders provided. We aim to be self-sufficient. We have fostered some more ideas in terms of growing the business out.

Sramana: It seems like you have built a good platform which enables a solid offering, and now you just need to expand market share.

Peter Caparso: We are gaining market share. In the U.S. the market leader is Chase Payment, and second would be First Data Corporation. Internationally, GlobalCollect and Netgiro are players in the field. Those are the companies we want to take market share from.

Sramana: Have you been able to take accounts away from those types of vendors?

Peter Caparso: Absolutely.

Sramana: It sounds like you are a hardcore sales guy, which I love. Tell me about an account you have been able to take away from one of your competitors.

Peter Caparso: There is a company in Seattle called PopCap Games. They produce one of the most popular Facebook games. They were one of the companies I reached out to two years ago. They were not interested at the time, but they did not shut the door completely. The worked with RBS globally and CyberSource in the U.S. They were happy at the time but showed interest when I came back to them three months later.

Sramana: When you were pitching against CyberSource, and RBS what was your positioning point?

Peter Caparso: It was a combination of flexibility, transparency, and access to the real time data. Legacy providers only provide off-the-shelf reporting. We have a brand-new platform. PCI compliance was a pain point for them, and they wanted to offload it. Our sticky payment pages also make a higher conversion rate. That was a compelling argument.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Accelerating Global E-Commerce: Adyen Cofounder Peter Caparso
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