PAYSTRAX has been included in the FT1000: Europe’s Fastest-Growing Companies 2026, the ranking put together by the Financial Times and Statista based on revenue growth between 2021 and 2024.
We placed 148th out of 1,000 companies across Europe, and were one of only nine Lithuanian companies to make the list, as well as the highest-ranked Lithuanian fintech. PAYSTRAX grew 643.5% over the period, with revenue rising from €4.2 million to €31.2 million.
There’s a small milestone hidden in those dates: PAYSTRAX started providing acquiring services in 2021, so 2025 was the first year we were even eligible to apply. Making the list on the first attempt says something about the pace of the last few years.
How we got here
Founded in 2018 by two Icelandic payments experts, each with over 20 years of experience, Jóhannes Ingi Kolbeinsson and Gunnar Mar Gunnarsson, PAYSTRAX set out to build a European acquirer for businesses that need more than a standard payment setup. Over the years that’s grown into a full ecosystem: card acquiring across major schemes and digital wallets, a live merchant portal with real-time business intelligence, flexible integrations for platforms and marketplaces through a PayFac model, payout capabilities, and tailored onboarding for merchants in complex industries that traditional acquirers often overlook. As a direct Visa and Mastercard acquirer and an authorised Payment Institution in both the EU and the UK, we sit at the core of the payment process rather than working through a middleman, which gives merchants more control and a more reliable service.
Today PAYSTRAX works with more than 1,500 merchants and 50+ partners, supported by a team of over 170 professionals across six offices in Europe. In 2025 alone, we acquired Nochex, one of the UK’s first online payment service providers, which strengthened our UK presence and brought decades of payments expertise into the group. We also opened a new London office near London Bridge, giving us a base in one of the world’s most important fintech markets, and moved our growing Lithuanian teams into larger spaces in Vilnius and Klaipėda.
That growth hasn’t come at the expense of stability. PAYSTRAX reached profitability within five months of launching its acquiring services and has stayed cash-flow positive throughout – something that’s rare for a company scaling this quickly, and rarer still without external funding.
Growth is easy to claim. Sustained, profitable growth is harder.
Still growing
Lithuania has been home since day one, and it remains PAYSTRAX’s centre of talent and expertise. As we keep growing internationally, we’re continuing to strengthen our teams here across IT, finance, marketing, operations and account management, with plans to create up to 150 new jobs in Vilnius and Klaipėda over the next three years.
The FT1000 recognition is a nice moment to stop and take that in. But the real work behind it is the everyday kind: building payment infrastructure that merchants can count on as they grow. That part doesn’t show up in a ranking, and it’s the part we care about most.
Thank you to our merchants, partners and everyone at PAYSTRAX who’s been part of the journey so far.
