Scalapay, a BNPL start-up targeting Southern Europe, announced raising Europe’s largest equity funding round with a $155 million Series A led by Tiger Global, according to a press release.
The company says it will use the funding to scale its team and operations, expand internationally and launch new products to support luxury, fashion and travel merchants.
The funding round follows Scalapay’s previous €40 million seed round in January, and brings total funding to just over $200 million. New investors Baleen Capital and Woodson Capital joined Fasanara Capital and Ithaca Investments in round participation, according to TechCrunch.
Scalapay’s BNPL service enables customers to spread purchases across three interest-free installments, with the company stating their service increases cart sizes by 48% and conversion at checkout by 11%.
Founded in 2019 by Simone Mancini and Johnny Mitrevski, the company has now launched in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Belgium, Netherlands and Austria. Scalapay currently has over 150 people, double since their seed round in January 2021. Over 3,000 merchants have partnered with Scalapay to deploy the service, making it one of the most used payments methods in Southern Europe.
“While the likes of Klarna and Afterpay have launched deposit accounts and moved further into the banking space, Scalapay’s exciting roadmap is laser focused on helping merchants with new customer experiences that increase conversion. They’re leveraging BNPL in an entirely new way,” CEO of Fasanara Capital Francesco Filia stated in the release.
Scalapay recently appointed Pingki Houang as General Manager, previously General Director for ShowroomPrive and Chief Executive of FashionCube, and Arlene Reynolds as Head of Global Operations from Just Eat.
“We’ve seen strong demand for luxury fashion over the past year, many younger customers are using Scalapay to treat themselves to a Prada bag or Valentino shoes that they love and have been dreaming about. Doing so in a financially responsible way, by paying over time, adds to the pleasure of making the purchase. We typically see 30-50% of the transactions from our luxury fashion merchants being done with Scalapay, the customer uptake has been very exciting,” Mitrevski stated in the release.