Zilch extends Series C by $50m to fund US growth

UK-based buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform Zilch has raised an additional $50 million in funding, taking its Series C fundraising total to $160 million, as it eyes expansion in the US.

The fintech unicorn will use the proceeds to fund its growth, with a focus on the US market where it recently opened an office in Miami and launched with more than 150,000 pre-registered customers.

The extension to its Series C funding round brings Zilch’s total funding to more than $460 million in debt and equity, with investors including Ventura Capital, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Gauss Ventures, DMG Ventures, M&F Fund and Limited Ventures.

Zilch co-founder Sean O’Connor said: “Since we founded Zilch and began raising capital, the markets have been difficult to predict, given Covid and now the downturn the markets are currently seeing. We believe our focus on alignment with the consumer, delivered by our innovative business model, has the potential to create significant long-term value for shareholders.

“Our extensive investment in communicating this message and developing our international network of renowned private, family office and institutional investors has enabled us to secure this extension at the same terms as our Series C, which is a testament to their belief  in our significant market opportunity, and our ability to execute against it.”

Zilch worked with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as part of its Sandbox Programme and was one of the UK’s first BNPL providers to be granted an FCA licence to perform regulated consumer credit activities.

Earlier this month, the UK Government announced plans for tougher regulation of the BNPL sector, following a broad consultation, which closed in January.

Under the government’s new proposals, BNPL lenders will need to be approved by the FCA and will be required to perform affordability checks to ensure consumers have adequate financial resources to manage loans repayments.

The Government is also set to shake-up the Consumer Credit Act, on the basis it is “highly prescriptive and increasingly cumbersome”.

It intends to move much of the Act, which came into force in 1974, from statute to sit under the FCA.