BNPL firm DivideBuy secures £300m investment

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) provider DivideBuy has secured a £300 million lending facility as it seeks to accelerate its growth.

The funding, which includes a minority equity investment, came from global investment management firm Davidson Kempner Capital Management.

Rob Flowers, founder and CEO of DivideBuy, said: “With the backing of Davidson Kempner, we have set ourselves the ambitious task of growing exponentially within the interest-free market, while being true to our original aim of creating greater value for retailers everywhere and enhancing the entire buying, or indeed, renting, experience for customers by creating intuitive, user-driven platforms.”

UK-based DivideBuy raised more than £60 million of equity investment and debt financing two years ago, from private equity investors Souter Investments and Jon Moulton’s private investment vehicle, together with two UK banks.

At the time, the funding was used by the business to develop its technology and help grow lending.

Founded in 2014, earlier this year DivideBuy reached £150 million in gross merchandise value and has said it is on track to hit £175 million by the end of 2021.

Commenting on its latest investment, Flowers said: “The sheer scale of this investment underlines the strength of DivideBuy’s business model, and how we’re revolutionising the POS finance sector by owning the full lending journey with assistive technology, automated soft credit checks and transparent lending with no hidden fees.”

He added: “With this backing from Davidson Kempner, we can now make buy now, pay later transactions available to even more retailers, and extend the alternate payment method to many more consumers who want greater payment choice at the POS.”

DivideBuy recently announced a partnership with re-commerce business musicMagpie, to create a new rental platform for the retail giant.