Lipa Later, a Kenyan tech-led consumer credit platform, is planning to expand to new markets in Africa after raising $12 million in pre-Series A funding. The equity and debt funding round saw the participation of Cauris Finance, Lateral Frontiers VC, GreenHouse Capital, SOSV IV LLC, Sayani Investments and Axian Financial Services. The startup, a buy-now-pay-later […]
TradeDepot raises $110M from IFC, Novastar to extend BNPL service to merchants across Africa
Startups digitizing B2B e-commerce and retail in Africa continue to grab the headlines after the pandemic paved the way for widespread offline retail and commerce disruption. TradeDepot, a Nigeria- and U.S.-based company that connects consumer goods brands to thousands of retailers and help out with distribution, has raised $110 million in new equity and debt […]
Mexican BNPL player Kueski secures $202M in debt & equity as it nears $100M+ in ARR
Kueski, a Mexico City-based “buy now, pay later” and online consumer lender, announced today it has secured $202 million in equity and debt funding. StepStone Group (which recently acquired Greenspring Capital) led the $102 million equity round and Victory Park Capital led the $100 million debt financing. StepStone was joined by other new investors including […]
American Express taps Opy for its first US third-party BNPL offering
Credit card companies are seeking to push further into the “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) market. American Express (Amex) announced today that it plans to partner with Opy, the U.S. subsidiary of Australian fintech Openpay, to allow all of its U.S. cardmembers to pay in installments for qualifying purchases in the healthcare and automotive segments. […]
In Amazon scuffle, Visa’s loss could be Affirm’s gain
Let’s look at why BNPL is becoming a more attractive payment option for big e-commerce companies like Amazon and Walmart, as well as merchant marketplaces like Square and Shopify.
Balancing risk: Modern architecture’s role in the BNPL playbook
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) is an old form of payment that is new again in a big way. And that could mean trouble for BNPL fintechs that are just getting to know the world of lending.
Indian buy now, pay later startup ZestMoney raises $50 million from Australia’s Zip
ZestMoney, a Bangalore-based buy now, pay later platform, said on Wednesday it has raised $50 million in a new financing round from Australia’s Zip as the Indian firm looks to double down on a trend that has shown early signs of traction in several global markets. The eight-year-old Australian firm, which has a presence in […]
Really, this market isn’t good enough?
Klarna’s CEO says he’s ‘nervous’ to take the company public. But the public market for BNPL companies actually feels pretty strong at the moment.
Is India’s BNPL 2.0 set to disrupt B2B?
A specific vertical of BNPL products is gaining traction: one targeted toward small and medium enterprises (SMEs), also known as “SME BNPL.”
BNPL is not a winner-takes-all game
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Natasha and Mary Ann took over this week’s show with Chris and Grace, which meant that our overdeveloped senses of curiosity filled up the script just fine (even on a somewhat short week). Unintentionally, today’s episode was built around […]