Alma raises 115 million euros to go international

The young French company specializing in split and deferred payment services Alma announced on Thursday that it had raised 115 million euros from several shareholders, including the Chinese internet giant Tencent, in order to finance its international expansion.

In 2022, Alma plans to open new markets, including in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal, Ireland and Austriadetails a press release.

The new shareholder Tencent has the advantage of having created Wechat, and Wechat pay (a benchmark messaging and transaction service in China, editor’s note), which is really the highest standard for this type of payment solution, explains the co-founder and director of Alma Louis Chatriot. This leve is accompanied by the subscription of a debt of 95 million euros to finance the current activity.

Created in 2018, the young shoot is present in the segment of split payment, these offers which allow you to pay for a purchase (fashion, jewellery, sports equipment, home, etc.) in several instalments, whether it is made online or in store. It is remunerated by charging the seller a commission of between 2% and 4% of the sale price, whether or not the seller chooses to pass it on to the end customer.

Several of its historical shareholders, including Cathay Innovation, Eurazeo and Bpifrance, also took part in the round table.

A unicorn in the making

This operation does not tip the Paris-based company into the category of unicorns, these digital companies valued at more than a billion dollars, but we are not very far from it either, notes Mr. Chatriot.

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Alma is mainly present in France but has teams in Italy, Spain, Germany and Belgium. It has 200 employees, works with 6,000 merchants and has managed more than one billion euros in payment volume in 2021.

In May 2021, the company signed a strategic partnership agreement with Banque Postale Consumer Finance, a subsidiary of La Banque Postale dedicated to consumer credit, to make this means of payment available to merchants.

It had raised 49 million euros a year ago and 12.5 million euros two years ago.

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