November 24 (SeeNews) - Greece-based buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) startup Finloup has raised 1 million euro ($1.1 million) in a pre-seed round, aiming to onboard at least 200 businesses within the next 12-18 months and explore opportunities in the neighboring markets in Southeast Europe (SEE), Bulgarian media reported.
The funding round was led by Athens-based early-stage fund Velocity.Partners and joined by Thessaloniki-headquartered venture capital firm TECS Capital, Athens-based e-commerce and digital payments company Everypay, and a number of business angels, Sofia-based news outlet The Recursive reported earlier this week.
“We believe that Finloup’s blended data approach that sits at the core of its own credit scoring methodology, by leveraging open-banking data together with proprietary as well as third-party data from its user and merchant bases, provides a competitive edge versus classic BNPL providers that depend on a standardized score from organized credit bureaus. This is particularly suitable in the SEE reality, in which the markets are very unstructured and premature as far as credit scoring is concerned," The Recursive quoted Dimitris Kalavros-Gousiou, general partner at Velocity.Partners, as saying.
In the short term, Finloup will focus on affirming its position in Greece and covering all main consumer verticals - fashion, high-end grocery, mobility, jewelry, furniture, and electronics. At the same time, the company will explore how to build its presence in other countries in the SEE region. Given the overall state of fintech and VC maturity in the region, Bulgaria and Romania seem to be the most likely options for expansion. The company expects to be ready with its expansion strategy in the second half of next year.
($ = 0.892192 euro)