Jacob de Geer graduated from the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) and became an early employee at TradeDoubler, working alongside Spotify co-founder Martin Lorentzon. In 2010, de Geer's wife had a small sunglasses business and was frequently losing sales because she had no ability to accept credit cards at craft fairs and pop-ups.
Traditional merchant acquiring banks required expensive long-term terminal leases that made card processing impossible for small merchants. Together with Magnus Nilsson, de Geer founded iZettle (now Zettle by PayPal), developing a sleek card reader that plugged directly into an iPhone or iPad, paired with transparent transaction fees and zero subscription lock-in.
iZettle swept through Sweden, the UK, Germany, Brazil, and Mexico. Backed by 83North, Index Ventures, Northzone, and Creandum, iZettle grew into a dominant merchant POS ecosystem. In May 2018, as iZettle was literally ringing bells for its public IPO, PayPal stepped in with a $2.2B cash offer, marking one of the biggest European fintech exits ever.
