Bumper raises $12m to expand its car repair buy now, pay later offering

Backed by Autotec and Jaguar Land Rover, Bumper plans to expand across Europe.

UK-based buy now, pay later provider, Bumper, raised $12m in Series A funding that will help the company expand its car repair financing platform across Europe, the company announced on Tuesday.

The latest round, which brought total funding to $17.5m, was led by Silicon Valley-based Autotech Ventures, with participation from Jaguar Land Rover’s fund InMotion Ventures, Porsche Ventures, and a group of prominent angel investors, the press release said.

The European aftersales market is projected to hit €300bn by 2030, said Bumper, which is already in profit and expects to triple its gross merchandise value (GMV) by the end of 2021.

“We believe that automotive repairs and the aftermarket are the next big BNPL frontiers,” said Alexei Andreev, Managing Director of Autotech Ventures. “Bumper’s business ties with leading automotive OEMs, deep integration with dealerships and repair quotation tools create formidable entry barriers for other players,” he added.

Bumper offers interest-free flexible payments and a fully automated platform for financing and managing car repairs. Currently, 60% of the franchised UK dealer market use its platform, including Volkswagen Group, Ford, Jaguar Land Rover and Nissan. Already a dominant player in the UK and Ireland, Bumper aims to be in every major European market by the end of 2022.

The company is currently rolling out its product in Germany and plans to launch in Spain and the Netherlands in the next three months. The new funding will go towards hiring in these new markets, scaling the tech team, and marketing, it said.

“We have seen huge demand for expanding the services we offer, and are looking forward to bringing Bumper to customers across Europe,” Bumper’s CEO and Co-founder James Jackson said.

The company plans a widespread launch of a consumer app, which will act as a one-stop-shop for all automotive requirements, such as payments for congestion charges, parking and tolls, and approving repair work. The app is due to launch in the UK in January 2022, it said.

Earlier this year, the Financial Times named Bumper the eighth fastest-growing European fintech.