- Case Study
Block’s Growth Story
Block is arguably one of the most innovative companies of our generation. What started as a payments dongle for micro-merchants has transformed into a modern day, full-suite financial services provider.
Block is a passionate, mission-driven organisation led by a visionary founder, and supported by a world class management team. Their innovation engine is the source of their sustained growth.
Most recently, Block has entered the realm of consumer finance, initially with its proprietary Cash App, then through its acquisition of the Australian-based buy-now-pay-later provider, Afterpay. As a standalone business, Cash App is one of the fastest ever businesses to reach $1b in revenue.
Our Ownership
TDM had been following Block since its IPO in 2015, and given it sat comfortably within our domain of payments and SMB software, we become shareholders in 2019.
At the time of our initial investment, we believed the market underappreciated the size of opportunity Block (then Square) had ahead of it and how well it was placed to grow both sides of its ecosystems (Square on the merchant side and Cash App on the consumer side).
Our recent engagements with the management team and Board of Directors on issues such as capital allocation and disclosure have only increased our conviction on this.
Block has a great management team committed to unlocking significant long-term shareholder value.
Block’s letter to shareholders in 2015 is a wonderful example of how their values align with TDM as it relates to long-term value creation. In this letter they state, “We’ll measure ourselves by our commitment to take the long view and focus on building a company that creates value over decades and not just a few fiscal quarters out.”
