SumUp is a London-headquartered British fintech (founded in Berlin in 2012 by Daniel Klein, Alessandro Leoni, Marc Alexander Christ, and Stefan Jeschonnek; CEO Daniel Klein) focused on mobile point-of-sale (mPOS), card terminals, and integrated payments for small businesses. The product targets the segment Square dominates in the US (micro-merchants, mobile traders, market vendors, hospitality, retail) with a hardware-led entry (the iconic SumUp Air card reader at €19 one-time) and a flat transaction fee (~1.69% in DACH; varies by market). The company serves 4M+ SMBs across the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and dozens of other markets across Europe and South America.
For an EU-sovereignty audit SumUp sits squarely in the "European brand, US-funded structurally" tier. The cap table is dominated by US institutional investors: Goldman Sachs (which led a US$624M / €1.5B funding round in May 2024 at an US$8.5B valuation), Bain Capital Credit, Crestline, Oaktree Capital Management, and American Express all hold significant positions, alongside Temasek (Singapore), BBVA Ventures (Spain), and Groupon (US). The company operates SumUp Inc. (a Delaware entity at 1209 Orange Street, Wilmington, the classic Delaware-registered-agent address) for US operations and uses US banking partners (Fifth Third Bank as registered Payment Facilitator and Piermont Bank for FDIC-member banking services in the US). SumUp is publicly considering a stock-market listing in either London or New York at a valuation of up to US$15B. The eventual venue will define ownership posture but both are non-EU listings.
Pricing: SumUp Air card reader €19 one-time + 1.69% per transaction in DACH (rates vary by country); SumUp Solo terminal €79; SumUp One subscription €19/month for 0.99% rate on supported markets. No monthly fee on the base plan. Best fit: micro-merchants and hospitality / retail SMBs wanting an inexpensive hardware-led card-acceptance solution. Procurement-grade EU buyers requiring an EU-controlled ownership chain should choose Adyen, Worldline, or Mollie (NL/FR public-listed European processors) instead.