Making inroads into the UK’s growing Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) payment methods for businesses sector, Berlin-based Billie has announced Series C funding round of $100 million to expand into the UK and other international markets. The fintech’s valuation has increased to $640 million and has nearly quadrupled since the last funding round.
The round was led by Dawn Capital, Europe’s leading B2B investor whose fintech portfolio includes category-leaders Tink, iZettle, Soldo and Copper. Also joining the round are B2C payments giant Klarna and Tencent, alongside existing investors Creandum, Speedinvest, Picus and GFC. The funding round is the world’s largest to date in the B2B BNPL market.
In addition to its equity funding, Billie has secured refinancing lines of $200 million per month. The capital will be provided by a consortium of German banks led by VVRB (Vereinigte Volksbank Raiffeisenbank eG) with participation from Raisin Bank and Varengold Bank.
Evolution of B2B BNPL market
“As a specialist B2B investor with a deep fintech focus, we’ve been closely following Billie and the evolution of the B2B BNPL market. Over the last few years, we’ve built a trusted relationship with Matthias, Christian and Aiga, impressed by the clarity of their vision, rapid growth and deep experience not only in B2B payments but in the wider risk and regulatory landscape too. We are confident they are well on the way to revolutionising the B2B payments market and excited to join them on the journey ahead.” says Josh Bell, General Partner at Dawn Capital.
Integration with Klarna
In line with the company vision, the fintech company will use the new investment for its international expansion, as well as significantly expand its technical integration with Klarna and other strategic partners. In addition, the company plans to enhance its B2B BNPL product—Billie Boost. With B2B features such as longer payment deadlines, installments, special offers for B2B marketplaces, e-invoicing and more to be added to the product.
Longer payment deadlines
“BNPL has radically changed the payment behavior in e-commerce in the last couple of years. Consumers pay easily and conveniently, when and how they want. Today, B2B buyers from larger companies to individual retailers are going “digital-first” and are already used to automated and frictionless processes in the B2C space. They also expect to see modern user interfaces, high limits for shopping carts, as well as real-time decisions for B2B. However, Buy Now, Pay Later for business customers, is still at a very early stage, and worldwide, there is nearly no provider of a BNPL product like what Klarna offers for B2C. We aim to close this gap, and we are happy to have gained strong partners in Dawn Capital, Klarna and Tencent to establish BNPL as the leading payment method for business customers,” says Dr. Matthias Knecht, co-founder and co-CEO of Billie.
Offer frictionless B2B payments
“We have known Matthias and the Billie team for some time and are impressed by their mission to offer frictionless B2B payments to merchants and businesses across the world. BNPL for B2B is still in its infancy phase—even though the demand has never been higher. We are here to solve problems and by being able to offer this service to our merchant partners together with Billie, we are doing just that. Something we also underline with our investment in Billie,” says Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO and Co-Founder at Klarna.