UK’s BNPL outfit Zilch receives an investment from eBay
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Zilch, a London-headquartered buy now, pay later outfit, just received an undisclosed amount as an investment from the e-commerce giant eBay.
The investment was revealed in Companies House filings, and it comes at the company’s valuation at $2 billion. However, while the exact figure is not known, the investment was said to be in the low single-digit millions. Even so, Zilch’s ability to secure eBay’s backing will likely bring even greater attention to the company.
Zilch sees strong growth despite the struggling market
At this time, Zilch still maintains the $2 billion valuation that it managed to secure during its Series C round, which took place in late 2021. The BNPL firm hit this mark right after launching in beta two years ago.
Zilch has continuously grown and expanded its user base ever since its launch, and this summer, its CEO, Philip Belamant, revealed that the company, at the time servicing over 3.5 million customers, is considering a listing. According to the CEO, this has been quite a serious consideration for Zilch.
He explained that the company’s financial year leading up to March 2023 saw a doubling of sales. Its revenue tripled during that time, and the gross profit that it saw increased fivefold, reaching a 17 million GBP mark.
Belament stressed that all of this took place in spite of an extremely difficult trading environment and a cost-of-living crisis that has struck not only the UK but the whole world. Even the interest rates kept soaring continuously during this period, but Zilch still managed to secure a strong balance sheet.
Belmont presented this as evidence of the company’s extremely strong growth mode, stating that Zilch is on course to hit bottom-line profitability in its core business in the near future.
BNPL services on the rise
In its own research, the UK’s financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a report stating that around 27% of the country’s adults — around 14 million individuals — have used a BNPL service at least once during the six-month period prior to January 2023. The figure is noticeably higher than the 17% who claimed that they had used such services in the preceding 12 months in May 2022.
In other words, the popularity of BNPL firms and services is seeing a sharp rise, and Zilch seems to be the leading platform in the sector.
Meanwhile, the UK government is considering the introduction of tougher rules for BNPL companies. But, for the time being, Zilch is taking a more proactive approach, reporting to credit agencies, and integrating tools offered by debt advice charity StepChange into its platform.
