PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024

FinTech Wisetack Nets $45M to Expand its BNPL In-Person Services Solution to More Verticals

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) company Wisetack, which provides installment payment services for things like home and auto repair, announced a Series B fundraiser for $45 million, according to a press release.

The release says the company plans to use the new funding to further expand into auto repair, elective medical, dental and veterinary, legal services, and more.

BNPL has become more popular in recent years, particularly during the pandemic as people needed to budget themselves against the uncertain economy of the past year and a half.

Wisetack’s unique take on the genre is its focus on service-based businesses. The press release notes that the service businesses Wisetack focuses on are largely smaller businesses. Those have primarily been more difficult to serve than the large eCommerce companies – though, paradoxically, the market for offline commerce is bigger than that for eCommerce, with Americans spending hundreds of billions per year on renovations and repairs.

Meanwhile, the automotive repair and maintenance market is set to hit $250 billion by 2026.

“In just a couple of years, Wisetack has become the go-to leader in embedded financing for home services, partnering with vertical SaaS leaders such as Housecall Pro and Jobber, who offer consumer financing to their customer bases of tens of thousands of home services professionals,” said Bobby Tzekin, CEO of Wisetack. “With this new influx of capital, we can continue to build the teams and resources necessary to expand faster into other service-based categories.”

In related BNPL news, Affirm, one of the leaders in the field, exceeded expectations for revenue, showing more activity for financing in installments and more customers.

Read more: Affirm’s BNPL Plans Surge As Customer Count Doubles to 7.1 Million

The three months ending June 30 saw Affirm hitting $262 million, up 71 percent since the previous year.

There was also better guidance than expected, with the company stock leaping around 20 percent in extended trading.

PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024