
The number of startups building buy now, pay later (BNPL) services is long. Just this year we’ve seen French BNPL startup Alma raise a $130 million equity round, BillEase raise $11 million for BNPL in the Philippines, Lipa Later raise $12 million for the same effort in Kenya, and ThankUCash raise $5.3 million for fintech infra in Africa that appears to include BNPL services.
There were other funding events and product launches, but that’s enough of a sample for us to understand that private-market investors around the world are investing in the consumer checkout-and-credit capability, even after industry incumbents Affirm went public and Klarna has grown to massive scale with global reach. The $29 billion Block-Afterpay deal was also good for startup BNPL volume, we reckon.
Until some recent turbulence, there’s been good reason to consider BNPL startup investments sensible bets. After all, public-market investors had pushed Affirm’s stock to over $175 per share in late 2021 from an IPO price of $49 per share. And Klarna raised $639 million at a valuation of nearly $46 billion in mid-2021. With momentum like that, why not power up a host of BNPL services …