From sales to payments with Sander Janca-Jensen (Episode 46)
In this episode, I sit down with Sander Janca-Jensen, CEO and co-founder of FlatPay Sander is the CEO and cofounder of Flatpay, the Danish fintech company building payments, point of sale and financial services for small
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In this episode, I sit down with Sander Janca-Jensen, CEO and co-founder of FlatPay
Sander is the CEO and cofounder of Flatpay, the Danish fintech company building payments, point of sale and financial services for small and medium sized physical merchants, including restaurants, cafés and independent shops.
Founded in 2022, Flatpay has quickly become one of Denmark’s fastest growing fintech scaleups, reaching unicorn status after a €145 million funding round that valued the company at around €1.5 billion, up from roughly $100 million in 2024.
Before launching the company, he spent almost six years at Verisure, where he held senior roles including Deputy Managing Director and Field Sales Director, managing more than 450 salespeople and overseeing around DKK 300 million in annual profit and loss responsibility. Earlier in his career, he held multiple sales leadership roles at Berlingske Media and cofounded SimplyJob, which reached more than 125,000 users within one year before its exit in 2018.
With him, we will talk about the importance of physical sales in payments, hiring in fast growing environments, and the fintech trends in the payment space in Europe.
In this episode
Sander Janca-Jensen, co-founder and CEO of Flatpay, explains how a team from field sales at Verisure built a Danish payments company for small merchants with simple flat pricing and in-person sales. He describes scaling to about 2,000 people in seven markets, hiring former consultants and promoting country leaders from within, and staying focused on one platform, one terminal and one sales channel. He expects to triple the merchant base this year and aims for a million merchants by 2029.
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction and Flatpay
- 1:50From alarms to payments
- 3:36Why merchants don't understand their fees
- 6:38Building a 2,000-person organisation
- 8:29How Flatpay hires leaders
- 15:29Running a field sales team
- 18:59Raising capital and consolidating the market
- 25:50Customers and volume
- 27:47Expanding beyond Europe
- 35:03Stablecoins and SMBs
- 37:21Where Flatpay uses AI
- 44:14The goal: a million merchants
- 46:15Advice for founders
Key facts
Sander worked in sales for about a decade, including field sales at Verisure in Denmark and Finland, before co-founding Flatpay with colleagues from the alarm industry.
Flatpay launched on 1 March 2022 to serve small and medium-sized merchants with simple payments pricing sold in person.
Flatpay has almost 2,000 employees across seven markets and a product and tech team of about 120.
Flatpay's management team of about 25 was hired entirely through networks and references, never job posts, and every country managing director has been promoted from within.
Flatpay sends about ten people from the company to open each new market; only the head of HR is hired locally at first.
Flatpay's field sales reps have a quota of 20 sales a month, and roughly two-thirds are still with the company after a year.
Flatpay has raised five rounds in about three and a half years, starting with a seed round led by SEED Capital.
Flatpay takes about 10% of the Danish market and 5–6% of the Italian market each year.
Flatpay was about to pass 100,000 merchants, up from around 70,000 at the start of the year, and expects about 200,000 by year-end.
An average Flatpay merchant processes about 200,000 euros a year, or about 20 billion euros in total annual volume.
Flatpay is not regulated and relies on partners for acquiring and licences so it can enter new markets quickly; its next market will likely be outside Europe.
Flatpay uses AI mainly in product and engineering and to turn customer calls into product research; it answers about 90% of calls within 30 seconds.
Flatpay aims to reach a million merchants by 2029 and become their partner for payments, financial services and software.
Merchants rarely understand card acquiring fees, which lets incumbents overcharge.
Complexity is underestimated: extra sales channels and acquisitions carry large hidden costs.
Questions and answers
Why field sales in the AI era?
Small merchants don't seek out products they don't understand; visiting them creates demand and makes KYB easier.
Why not grow through acquisitions?
Organic growth keeps one platform, one terminal and one channel, avoiding the complexity that slowed incumbents.
What is Sander's advice to founders?
You don't need a groundbreaking idea, and corporate experience can help you build faster.
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