In a Nutshell
- Simpler raised €9M in pre-Series A funding to expand across Europe, targeting key markets like the UK, Spain, and Italy.
- Their one-click Checkout as a Service (CaaS) platform simplifies payments, shipping, and loyalty programs, boosting conversions for merchants.
- The funding will support product development and team growth, with plans to triple their headcount.
Checkout as a Service platform
Simpler, the platform transforming the way merchants handle checkout by providing a unified, one-click buying experience across all channels, has raised €9M from new and existing investors, including VentureFriends, MMC Ventures, Lamda Development, VGC, among others (lead investor undisclosed).
They’ve raised €1M in a pre-seed round before this.
The new funding will help them accelerate European expansion, especially into key markets like the UK, Spain, and Italy. Rania Lamprou, Co-founder and CEO of Simpler shared with us:
“We’re also investing heavily in product development, specifically on our Checkout as a Service platform, which allows merchants to fully outsource their checkout infrastructure – payments, shipping, loyalty programs, all within a single, streamlined system. We’ll also be building out our sales and marketing teams to drive growth.”
What’s Simpler simplifying?
Merchants often struggle with integrating multiple, disjointed solutions for checkout flow, payment processing, shipping, and loyalty programes. Simpler is addressing this problem directly with its one-click purchase solution including a fully integrated payment suite, allowing them to streamline the checkout process for shoppers without managing complex infrastructure. They claim this simplified approach boosts conversions and makes it easier for customers to complete their purchases.
They are not alone in this field – there are mastodons as Shop Pay and Bolt, focusing on the USA market, as well as Shopify – branding itself as giving the best-converting checkout. Simpler wants to challenge that, specifically in Europe.
With their Checkout as a Service (CaaS) offering, merchants could eliminate the need for multiple integrations and deliver a frictionless checkout experience. In Simpler words, “CaaS reduces technical complexity, boosts conversion rates, and helps merchants focus on growth”.
Scaling for checkouts across Europe
Even though e-commerce flourished during COVID-19, those times also presented some problems. Merchants still struggled with low conversion rates because their checkout processes were complicated, Lamprou points out. That’s why this Greek co-founder, now situated in London, wanted to find the solution. She took things in her own hands, and started to code. “I knew there had to be a better way to reduce friction for both merchants and customers,” Lamprou told TechCrunch.
The problems were even more evident in Europe where each market has its preferred payment solutions, shipping providers, and loyalty programs. For merchants, that means they often have to integrate multiple solutions for each market, creating significant development and maintenance costs, explains Lamprou for The Recursive. This complexity is felt by consumers too, she adds, especially when they have to navigate different checkout flows depending on where they shop.
“Simpler addresses both sides of this equation. For merchants, we offer a unified checkout infrastructure that works seamlessly across all markets, removing the need for country-specific integrations. This allows merchants to focus on growth and customer experience rather than technical complexities.
For shoppers, it’s about providing a consistent, intuitive experience no matter where or how they shop. Whether they prefer credit cards, PayPal, or local payment methods, Simpler ensures that their buying experience is fast, easy, and streamlined. By simplifying the entire process, we make it easier for both merchants and shoppers to engage with each other – leading to higher conversion rates and less friction during checkout.”
“We’re aiming to triple our headcount”
They are targeting businesses of all sizes—from independent retailers to large enterprises. Currently, they have over 250 merchants and more than 500k registered shoppers.
On Simpler journey, Lamprou ventured with two friends she’d known from university, Alex Kyriakopoulos and Spyros Mandekis. They currently make a team of 12, but with this latest funding, they want to scale significantly.
“We’re aiming to triple our headcount by next year to support our product development and market expansion, focusing on both engineering and go-to-market roles,” concluded Rania Lamprou.
