As the e-commerce market grows, startups are racing to help online retailers sell larger items to consumers with so-called “buy-now-pay-later” options. Via BNPL, consumers turn a one-time purchase into a limited string of regular payments.
Terms vary, but the space is very active. TechCrunch covered Scalapay’s January $48 million round, what the Italian BNPL described as a seed round. Also this year, we’ve seen France’s Alma raise a $59.4 million Series B for its BNPL efforts. And I recently covered Wisetack’s aggregate $19 million fundraise as it looks to make more noise about its service that focuses on real-world transactions like home improvement.
But unlike some burgeoning startup niches where we lack visible results from leading players to use as a lens for vetting the market, we do have a number for the BNPL space. This morning, to better understand what’s going on with the younger companies hoping to help you finance your next mistaken purchase, let’s check out earnings results from Klarna, Afterpay and Affirm.
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Klarna, based in Sweden, is said to be considering a direct listing. Its 2020 results are here. Afterpay, based in Australia, went public a few years ago. Its H1 fiscal 2021 results are here. And then there’s Affirm, the recently public U.S.-based BNPL company that had a recent direct listing. Its fiscal Q2 2021 (calendar Q4) results are (Read more…)