It took a long time for Italy to acquire its first unicorn with Scalapay, as the buy-now-pay-later company raised 497 million dollars in a series B round. Having received 155 million dollars in A round, led by Tiger Global last September, it was only a matter of time before the Scalapay platform claimed the title of the first Italian Startup with a valuation of more than 1 billion dollars.
The company from Milan has announced the raising of additional 497 million dollars, specifically 213 million dollars in shares and 284 million dollars in debt, in its coffers as part of a B series round, while in total, the company raised 1,197,000 dollars.
With Klarna‘s competitors valued at 45.6 billion dollars, Square giving 29 billion dollars for the acquisition of Afterpay and the PayPal giving 2.7 billion dollars to acquire the Japanese Paidy, the BNPL sector is hotter than ever.
Scalapay offers consumers the relatively standardized in the industry (classic) payment options in 3 installments, 4 installments or entirely after 14 days but has also followed a different course as it focuses on the merchants while its competitors have mainly turned to the banking industry.
Those who work with Scalapay, including major brands such as Decathlon, Calzedonia, Moschino, Samsonite, Nike and Pandora, even reported an increase in sales of the average basket by 48% and an overall increase in cash inflow of 11%. But now, the company wants to take things even further and has launched an even more specialized platform, Magic.
Scalapay entered the unicorns club for good, in a round led by Tencent and Willoughby Capital with the participation of Tiger Global, Gangwal, Moore Capital, Deimos and Fasanara Capital, with Goldman Sachs advising Scalapay as a private placement agent.