Founded 2015 by Arik Shtilman, Arkady Karpman, Omer Priel. $1B+ raised, $4.5B valuation. Revenue >$1B post-PayU. 100+ countries, 250K+ merchants. IPO candidate.
Global fintech-as-a-service platform · Founded 2015 by Arik Shtilman, Arkady Karpman, and Omer Priel · HQ London, R&D Israel · $1B+ raised · $4.5B valuation (2025) · Revenue >$1B post-PayU · 100+ countries · 250,000+ merchants · IPO candidate 2026.
Rapyd at a Glance
| Company | Rapyd Financial Network Ltd. |
| Founded | 2015, Israel |
| Co-founders | Arik Shtilman (CEO) · Arkady Karpman · Omer Priel |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
| R&D center | Israel |
| Product | Fintech-as-a-service — payments, wallets, card issuing, fraud protection, money transfers across 100+ countries and 1,200+ payment methods |
| Total funding | $1B+ across multiple rounds |
| Valuation | $4.5B (Series F, March 2025); peak ~$15B (2022 secondary) |
| Revenue | >$1B (post-PayU acquisition) |
| Clients | 250,000+ merchants including Adidas, Google, Ikea, Meta, Netflix, Uber |
| Employees | ~1,600 |
| Licenses | 41 regulated jurisdictions |
| Status | Private · IPO planned 2026 |
Shtilman, Karpman, and Priel: Building the Payments API Layer
Arik Shtilman, Arkady Karpman, and Omer Priel founded Rapyd in 2015 with a thesis that global commerce needed a single API layer connecting every local payment method in the world — bank transfers in Europe, digital wallets in Southeast Asia, cash-on-delivery in Latin America, card payments in the US — into one unified platform. The founders saw that companies expanding across borders were forced to integrate with dozens of local payment providers individually, each with its own technical specification, compliance regime, and settlement currency. Rapyd would abstract that complexity into a single integration.
The founding team was Israeli, with R&D anchored in Israel, but the company was structured for global operations from the start — headquartered in London to access European regulatory frameworks and banking relationships that an Israeli or US domicile would not provide as efficiently.
The Valuation Arc: $2.5B to $15B to $4.5B
Rapyd's valuation trajectory is among the most dramatic in Israeli tech. In January 2021, a $300 million Series D valued the company at $2.5 billion. Seven months later, a $300 million Series E led by Target Global, with BlackRock, Fidelity, and Altimeter joining, pushed the valuation to an estimated $8.75–10 billion. In 2022, a secondary transaction reportedly valued Rapyd at approximately $15 billion — making it Israel's most valuable private tech company at the time.
Then the recalibration. By February 2025, Bloomberg reported Rapyd was seeking $300 million at $3.5 billion — a 65 percent drop from the Series E. The round that ultimately closed in March 2025 was larger ($500 million, mostly equity with some debt) and priced at approximately $4.5 billion. The capital was used to complete the $610 million acquisition of PayU GPO from Prosus — a transformative deal that had been signed in August 2023 but required regulatory approval across seven jurisdictions.
The PayU Acquisition
The PayU GPO acquisition, completed March 14, 2025, fundamentally changed Rapyd's scale. PayU brought approximately $350 million in annual revenue, ~1,000 employees, and regulated operations across Europe, the UK, South America, and Asia. Post-acquisition, Rapyd operates in over 100 countries with 41 regulatory licenses, ~1,600 employees, revenues exceeding $1 billion, and more than 250,000 merchant clients. The combined platform offers more than 1,200 payment methods — from local bank transfers and digital wallets to card payments and cash vouchers.
The PayU deal also brought a previous Israeli connection: PayU had acquired Israeli payments company Zooz for approximately $80 million in 2018 and maintained a development center in Israel.
The IPO Path and Israeli Credit Card Ambitions
Shtilman told Calcalist in September 2024 that Rapyd is planning to go public in 2026 and intends to automate 70 percent of back-office services by then, targeting significant profitability improvement. In December 2024, Calcalist reported that Rapyd had applied to the Israel Securities Authority for an expanded clearing license to issue credit cards — a move that would put Rapyd in direct competition with Isracard, MAX, and the established Israeli payment-card issuers. The combination of an IPO filing and a domestic credit-card play would make Rapyd simultaneously a global payments infrastructure company and an Israeli consumer-finance competitor.
Rapyd in the Israeli Payments Ecosystem
Rapyd sits at the infrastructure layer of the Israeli fintech ecosystem — alongside Fireblocks (digital-asset infrastructure), Payoneer (NASDAQ: PAYO, cross-border payments), Melio (SMB B2B payments, acquired by Xero), and Tipalti (AP automation). The Israeli payments-infrastructure cohort is distinctive for building global platforms from Israeli R&D centers — companies that process billions of dollars in transactions across 100+ countries while their core engineering teams sit in Tel Aviv, Herzliya, and Ramat Gan.
Former Rapyd executives have already started recycling into the next generation. In July 2026, four former Rapyd leaders launched Cordant, an $8 million seed-stage startup building a monitoring and coordination layer for complex payment flows — a company designed to solve the operational complexity that platforms like Rapyd themselves create.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who founded Rapyd?
Arik Shtilman (CEO), Arkady Karpman, and Omer Priel, all Israeli, co-founded Rapyd in 2015.
What does Rapyd do?
Rapyd provides a fintech-as-a-service platform connecting 1,200+ local payment methods across 100+ countries into a single API — enabling cross-border payments, wallets, card issuing, and fraud protection.
How much has Rapyd raised?
Over $1 billion in total funding, including a $500 million Series F in March 2025 at a $4.5 billion valuation.
What was Rapyd's peak valuation?
Approximately $15 billion in a 2022 secondary transaction — making it Israel's most valuable private tech company at the time.
Is Rapyd going public?
CEO Arik Shtilman stated in September 2024 that Rapyd plans to IPO in 2026.
What is the PayU acquisition?
Rapyd acquired PayU GPO from Prosus for $610 million (signed August 2023, closed March 2025), adding ~$350M revenue, ~1,000 employees, and operations across 30+ countries.
Is Rapyd an Israeli company?
Rapyd was founded by three Israeli entrepreneurs with R&D in Israel. It is headquartered in London for regulatory and banking reasons.
Primary Sources
Rapyd company announcements on funding and PayU acquisition. Calcalist/CTech reporting on Series F, PayU close, IPO plans, and credit-card license application. Bloomberg on 2025 valuation. Times of Israel Series E coverage (August 2021). TechCrunch on 2025 fundraise. CoinLaw Rapyd statistics (2026). Globes on Series G. Reuters on valuation trajectory.
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