Guillaume Desloges and Louis Chatriot/Alma
News Alternative Lending
French buy-now-pay-later platform Alma scoops €49m Series B
Alma plans to use the capital from its latest fundraise to bolster its ambitious 2021 growth plans.
Alma, the French buy-now-pay-later platform for merchants and consumers, has closed a €49m (£43.5m) Series B funding round.
The round, which comes nearly a year after Alma’s €12.5m Series A, saw participation from Cathay Innovation, which has invested in fellow fintechs Chime and Curve,Thought Machine investor Idinvest, the French Public Investment Bank (Bpifrance), Seaya Ventures and Picus Capital.
Following the injection of fresh capital, Alma plans to accelerate plans to develop its offering for retailers.
Louis Chatriot, co-founder and CEO of Alma, said: "This new round of financing is a validation of the continued trust of our investors in our vision of retail.”
“With their support, we are able to continue developing our service offering, in line with our desire to make payment facilities available to an ever-growing number of merchants and consumers."
Currently, Alma offers both merchants and consumers the ability to pay in instalments and has recently launched its buy-now-pay-later product, which allows customers to delay payments from two weeks up to a month after purchase.
Olivia de la Rivière, growth equity investor at Bpifrance Large Venture Fund, said: “BNPL and instalment payment markets are constantly growing with retailers having to adapt their business model to ever-changing customers’ needs, enabling them to reach higher conversion rates.”
“Alma is uniquely positioned to help businesses in meeting their needs and to become a leader of the payment market. We are highly impressed with the incredible performance of Louis and its team over the past two years.”
As well as raising the fresh capital, Alma also has around €21m in debt financing from a mix of institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals.
Founded in 2017 by Louis Chatriot and Guillaume Desloges, Alma plans on growing its employee base and number of merchants on its platform threefold in 2021 and expects to exceed €1bn in annual volume of payments within the next two years.
Companies In This Article
