Mr Desai raised on a pre-money valuation of $60m, which while it is a significant valuation, Samir has essentially given away 50% the business from day one. Proof perhaps that it is better to have 50% of something than 100% of nothing. However, Samir will have to grow fast if Super Payments is going to be worth the multiples required for him to raise again without further heavy dilution. Otherwise he could quickly end up with less ownerships than the 4.5% of Funding Circle that he still owns and apparently has no intention of reducing his stake.

As reported on Sky News, a spokesperson for Funding Circle said: “The board discussed, and are supportive of, Samir’s desire to explore a new business venture, whilst continuing as a committed long-term shareholder and valued member of Funding Circle’s board.”

Also, the timetable for key milestones at Mr Desai’s new company was unclear on Wednesday. Which seems fair since he’s got a lot of work on his hands, people to hire and money to spend.

We had a quick look at social media and domain names and there’s little to go at. Superpayments.com was registered in 2008 and unsurprisingly ownership protection from Amazon Registrar and a quick trip to the website gives you nothing other than “Super” and a contact us option. If that turns out to be his, at least we know what cloud solution he’ll be pinning his tech needs on. Also SuperPayments.io is still available. 

As many FinTech watchers know, the global payments sector has been one of the hottest targets for investment from venture capital and private equity firms in recent years. That’s because they know that you don’t need to dominate the market to hit the multiples they are looking for in future valuations. Plus, Visa and Mastercard are very willing and able to spend big to maintain their overall dominance of the sector.

Mr Desai declined to comment further on Super Payments, so I doubt he’ll speak to us, but we’d love to get our hands on that investment deck.

And we’d also love to get Samir on our Podcast to talk to him about his 11 years at Funding Circle and why he felt driven to do it all again with Super Payments.

We’ll be watching this one with interest.