Younited raises €60 million to expand its instant credit offering
French fintech Younited, which provides instant credit to European consumers at checkout, has raised €60m in funding and secured unicorn status at the same time.
The investment comes from Younited’s main shareholders Eurazeo, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, Bpifrance and Goldman Sachs. That means a valuation of €1.1 billion for the firm, which last raised over €130 million in a Series G funding round in 2021.
The capital injection will allow Younited to continue to distribute its instant credit and open banking solutions, as well as develop partnerships in all five markets where the company is active – France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy. Fintech is also preparing to announce new European geographies in the future.
The Paris-based company, which offers consumers up to €50,000 in cash-out credit to buy high-ticket items such as smartphones or home furnishings, was founded in 2009 by Charles Egly and Geoffroy Guigou. It is integrated into electronic cash registers, which means that customers get an immediate decision on credit as well as repayment terms of up to seven years. It has already served 1 million customers to date, achieving €3 billion in cumulative gross merchandise value (GMV), with an average credit amount of around €1,500. The firm expects to achieve 5 billion euros in cumulative GMV this year.
Younited could be “major player in European credit”
Charles Egly, CEO and co-founder of Younited, said: “While Younited’s historical business (direct to consumer) is profitable by 2022 in all five of our countries, this new fundraising will allow us to continue to invest in our disruptive technology as well as in the distribution of our other activity (partnership) launched recently.”
The partnership channel gives Younited’s partners, merchants and financial institutions the opportunity to use the technologies and expertise developed by the company to implement instant credit solutions on their platforms. It already enjoys high-profile partnerships with the likes of Orange and Microsoft, giving customers credit when they come to pay for items in the Xbox or Orange Store.
Gilles Grapinet, Chairman of Younited and CEO of Worldline, continues: “This fundraising, despite a market context characterized by the macroeconomic uncertainty we are experiencing, demonstrates the confidence of Younited’s investors, which I fully share thanks to the demonstrated maturity of their development strategy . Younited has all the cards in hand to become a major player in the European credit industry.”
Younited has also reported strong full-year figures for 2022, including GMV of €1.6bn (+70%) and total revenues of €190mn (+54%). The results, Younited says, give it a critical mass with almost 2 billion euros in annual GMV as well as significant growth in both the D2C channel and partnerships.
