London FinTech Zilch has won backing from eBay which maintains its $2 billion valuation.
The Buy Now Pay Later company was backed with funding in the ‘low single digit millions’, according to The Telegraph.
The fast-growth firm already has $460m in debt and equity funding behind it and last year became Europe’s fastest ever FinTech double-unicorn.
Zilch, which has amassed a 3.5 million-strong customer base in just three years, launched an office in Miami last year as it targets rapid growth in the US.
Speculation of a public listing in London is also growing after it was invited to open trading on the capital’s Stock Exchange recently.
It also recently released a product for people typically excluded from mainstream credit which it claims will create access for millions to build their financial profiles safely and responsibly, without paying any interest.
Co-founder and CEO Philip Belamant told BusinessCloud last year that “the secret sauce for UK FinTech companies is…. they benefit from access to the City of London and the UK’s sophisticated financial services industry”.
However he warned that a perfect storm of rising interest rates, inflationary pressures and falling public company valuations – most notably in the tech sector – had triggered a reset in thinking which meant that FinTechs needed to pivot to address investors’ new priorities.
In three years, Zilch has generated a total of £300m in rewards and savings for users. Its sign-ups have been equivalent to 3,000 a day since launch. With a reward-earning ‘Pay Now’ debit product and zero-interest ‘Pay in 4 over 6 weeks’ credit product, it claims to have consumer interest at heart and says it has consistently maintained one of the highest Trustpilot ratings of any financial product.
“I’m enormously proud of how far we’ve come in just three years… in just 36 months, almost 10% of the UK adult working population is now a registered customer,” added Belamant recently.
“Many customers are using Zilch daily with our average customer using the product 100 times a year. Zilch has already driven over £1.5 billion in commerce to retailers and put over £300m of savings and rewards back into the pockets of customers. And this is just the beginning.
“Whilst we remain acutely aware of the many challenges that lie ahead, I am very encouraged by the fact our margins are currently at their highest, credit losses at record lows and revenues the strongest we’ve ever seen. Exceptional growth in fundamental unit economics with substantial gross profit margins holds Zilch on a clear course to profitability and beyond. We are also currently on track to process more sales in the next 12 months than we have in Zilch’s history to date.”