Q&A with Stoil Vasilev and Gareth Walsh – the co-founders of Paypercut

In July 2025, we led Paypercut – a single-integration BNPL aggregator – in their €2M seed round. We sat down with Gareth Walsh and Stoil Vasilev, the co-founders of Paypercut, to learn more about why they’re building a BNPL product for small and medium-sized merchants in Central and Eastern Europe, what they’ve learned, and what their vision is for Paypercut. Having both been part of SumUp’s success, Gareth and Stoil bring a fresh perspective to payments and are excited to be striking out on their own with a mission to revolutionise the payments landscape in Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, the Czech Republic, Poland, Turkey and beyond.

Why are you solving this problem now?

Stoil Vasilev: After leaving SumUp, Gareth and I wanted to work together with people we liked. We identified an unaddressed opportunity in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) market for Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Large retailers have access to a wide range of payment solutions and favourable terms, but SMEs (with revenue of $ 100,000 to $ 10 million per annum) face significant premiums and limited options. We negotiate with BNPL providers to get the best terms for these smaller merchants, offering higher certainty of approval by routing transactions to multiple providers, which is crucial for both merchants and end customers.

Gareth Walsh: Merchants need more payment options, including installments. We believe alternative payment methods are the future. BNPL providers in the CEE region face two problems: getting listed on payment gateways (difficult, usually only one or two per gateway) and low conversion rates (only about 20% of applicants are successful). Our aggregation service enables customers to make a single call to multiple providers, thereby increasing conversion rates for merchants and enhancing the experience for BNPL providers, fostering healthy competition.

What is your ideal customer profile?

Stoil Vasilev: Customers processing around €1 million in volume, operating in multiple online markets, and accepting multiple currencies.

Gareth Walsh: Yes, small and medium-sized merchants in the CEE region with a website who want to add a cool new payment method.

Tell us about the team. You worked together before at SumUp. How and when did you decide to start something new?

Gareth Walsh: Yes, we met at SumUp. The three of us – Emil (go-to-market/sales), Stoil (fundraising, investor management, M&A, senior executive), and I (regulatory) – have the rare experience of scaling a business from a bootstrap startup to a $10 billion valuation with 4,500 staff and 5 million customers. This journey taught us how to predict and avoid common pitfalls in scaling. We enjoyed working together and wanted to do something new. We weren’t tied to a specific idea initially, but rather focused on building a scalable payment product.

What’s the biggest lesson you learned from your last job?

Gareth Walsh: It’s about vision and drive. The SumUp founders had done it before, giving them incredible vision. As founders, you are the glue, providing a strong vision that everyone coalesces around. Finding the right team to execute that vision is also crucial; knowing many people in the area has helped us with hiring. You need to be sure of what you’re trying to achieve.

What’s your vision for Paypercut in the next couple of years?

Stoil Vasilev: We aim to solve problems for merchants, eventually for consumers too. We started with bundled alternative payment methods for SMEs. As we grow and develop our product, we plan to obtain a payment institution or e-money license. This flexibility will allow us to offer things like prepaid cards to consumers, reducing costs. We also want to be at the forefront of innovation with stablecoins and the digital euro. Our focus is on user experience, not just optimising for cost or fees.

Gareth Walsh: The CEE region is often overlooked by global players. We want to offer tailored services for each country. Our recent pre-seed round, the largest in the region in a long time, allows us to prove our BNPL solution. The next step is obtaining our license to operate independently, then exploring other payment methods, such as stablecoins, and addressing the needs of both merchants (who accept payments) and consumers (who pay). We’re currently focused on BNPL, but we have a clear long-term plan for the neglected yet exciting CEE market, which boasts incredible talent.

What are your immediate goals?

Stoil Vasilev: Expand to as many CEE markets as possible (Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and especially Turkey, a neglected market with its own robust local payment network). We want to be one of the first international players to participate differently there. Our next steps include enhancing the BNPL product, obtaining our license (submitting the application to the Central Bank of Ireland), and developing a PCI DSS-compliant checkout for long-term sustainability.

Your €2M seed round is one of the largest seed rounds to date in this region. Why do you think that is?

Stoil Vasilev: Pre-seed rounds in the CEE region typically rely on angel investors, as larger funds often overlook these early-stage investments. Our experience at SumUp helped us connect with top investors. Many companies in the region lack this capability. While not having enough money can train efficiency, we’ve also seen a growing interest from larger funds in CEE. Our pre-seed round is significant for Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece.

Gareth Walsh: The CEE region is a “forgotten region” despite incredible talent, especially in engineering. Bulgarians are reserved and not so good at self-promotion. It’s a great place to do business, offering significant investment opportunities.