Buy Now Pay Later: Klarna rival Scalapay raises €40m

Scalapay, a third-party 'buy now and pay later' platform, has raised €40m ($48m), in a seed round of funding.

The round is the latest is a string of large deals for fintechs offering 'buy now and pay later' services, in both Europe and the US. While Klarna still very much dominates in Europe in terms of geographical coverage, a number of others are competing in the lucrative market.

French buy-now-pay-later platform Alma, for example, landed a €49m Series B earlier this week.

Scalapay says it has more than 1000 merchant partners at present and operates in Italy and Germany. It offers payments in three interest-free instalments. It recently signed a partnership with Raisin Bank to allow retailers to offer BNPL instalments payments across all of Europe via an open banking integration.

Simone Mancini, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, says the new funding will be used to build its pipeline of merchants across Europe.

 “When comparing solutions used by merchants to improve customer experience and their bottom line, interest-free instalments stand apart for the high return on investment. We immediately have a big impact on revenues and the integration effort is minimal,” said Mancini.

Customers include merchants such as Decathlon, Calzedonia, Bata, Aosom and Bricobravo. 

The investment was led by Fasanara Capital, alongside Baleen Capital, and Italian Family Office Ithaca Investments.