The buy now, pay later sector continues to attract investor dollars, with two-year old UK player Zilch the latest to benefit, raising $80 million at a valuation of $500 million.
Zilch opened in beta in 2019, looking to distinguish itself in the crowded BNPL arena by connecting directly with customers and using soft background credit checks performed by Credit Kudos via Open Banking to determine affordability.
Over the last two years, the startup has raised more than $120M and is fast approaching 500,000 customers as well as quadrupled its internal headcount to 80 over 2020.
Working with Monavate, the company has built an over the top platform meaning that it is merchant agnostic, letting customers tap to pay wherever they want.
Zilch is currently rolling out a 'tap and pay-over-time' feature that lets shoppers make in-store payments with a wave of their digital wallet, with the cost spread over a six week period.
The Series B funding round, backed by numerous investors including Gauss Ventures and M&F Fund, will be used to launch in the USA and continue the company’s growth in the UK by investing further in product innovation and development and hiring an additional 100 staff.
Philip Belamant, founder and CEO at Zilch, “By putting the customer first and building direct relationships with each of them, we are doing something no one else in the industry has done before. Zilch is far more than a BNPL company. We will very soon be launching in a number of new countries and continue the testing and rapid rollout of alternate ways for our customers to spend with Zilch."
The company