French BNPL Startup Alma Notches $59.4M in Series B Funding

French buy now, pay later (BNPL) startup Alma closed a 49 million euro ($59.4 million) Series B funding round, TechCrunch reported on Monday (Jan. 25).

Participating in the round were Idinvest, Cathay Innovation, Bpifrance’s Large Venture fund, Seaya Ventures and Picus Capital. Alma also raised a credit line of $25.5 million (21 million euros) to finance merchant payments.

Similar to Klarna, which is not available in France, Paris-headquartered Alma gives shoppers the option of paying for merchandise across interest-free installments. The new funding will be used to triple its staff and grow annual volumes to 1 billion euros by early 2023. The startup is also looking to grow outside France and assist French firms in selling goods to shoppers in other European countries.

Launched in 2017 by former Stripe executive Louis Chatriot and Guillaume Desloges, Alma gives shoppers the ability to pay in four installments while also giving merchants full payment at the time of purchase. Alma is popular with merchants because the startup absorbs 100 percent of the potential risk.

Debit cards are used more often in France than credit cards. Alma is also looking to offer BNPL installment plans longer than four payments, offering users the ability to pay across six, 10 or 12 installments, per TechCrunch.

Buy-now-pay-later is a fast-growing vertical, with companies like Visa and PayPal extending their businesses into the sector. BNPL is no longer a niche payments subtype but is now a growing mainstream option that consumers anticipate as a way to shop and pay.

A January PYMNTS survey of 2,992 consumers, done in collaboration with Australia’s BNPL firm Afterpay, indicated that online purchases are continuing to surpass those made via in-store shopping. The survey revealed that BNPL shoppers bought more and spent more on average.