Mollie, one of the fastest growing payment service providers in Europe, has announced it will be opening a development hub in Lisbon, Portugal. The office will be home to over 100 employees by 2023 and is part of the company’s plans to dramatically increase its product development velocity. The news comes just weeks after Mollie’s Series C round, in which it raised €665 million, valuing the company at €5.4 billion.

Diogo Antunes, a Senior Engineering Manager at Mollie, will manage the Lisbon Development Hub, and has set some ambitious recruitment targets. Primarily focused on software engineers and product managers, by the end of 2021 Mollie expects to have hired up to 20 people. By the end of 2022, the hub will support up to 60 staff, rising to more than 100 in 2023.

“Mollie is now one of the largest privately-held fintechs in Europe, and we have firm plans to accelerate our product development to meet the evolving needs of our 120,000+ merchant customers,” said Marco dos Santos, CTO, Mollie. “We are excited to come to Portugal, and Lisbon is a fantastic base for our new development hub, with thousands of highly talented software engineers and product managers in the region. Lisbon has a strong and rapidly growing technology ecosystem and boasts a number of world class science and engineering universities. It’s also an exciting opportunity for market expansion in the future.”

“Marco and I understand the incredible levels of both experienced and emerging engineering talent in Lisbon,” said Diogo. “I’m excited to be leading our new development hub and helping Mollie to realise its vision of becoming the most-loved payment service provider in the world.”

Mollie’s products, simple and transparent pricing and customer service, alongside its no lock-in contracts, have driven rapid, continued growth. Mollie works with partners like Klarna, WooCommerce and web agencies to deliver simple, reliable and stand-out products for SMEs, and counts Gymshark, Lyskin and Sem Escamas as customers. With the series C investment, there are plans to expand its product portfolio beyond payments into financial services for SMEs, following the arrival of Chief Product Officer, Rogier Schoute, in April.