- Irish fintech Wayflyer has become the country’s sixth unicorn after raising $150 million.
- The Series B round will allow Wayflyer to continue expanding across its core markets.
- The company provides alternatives to debt or VC equity financing to e-commerce startups.
Irish venture capital disruptor Wayflyer has raised $150 million in a deal that values the business at $1.6 billion.
The Dublin-based startup, which was founded in 2019, provides non-dilutive, unsecured capital for inventory and advertising space to e-commerce companies in the US, Western Europe, and Australia.
Wayflyer’s funding ranges from between $10,000 and $20 million. Businesses that make use of Wayflyer’s capital can pay it back by offering up a percentage of their daily sales without the need to give up equity.
The Series B round has made Wayflyer Ireland’s sixth unicorn with the startup claiming it is now deploying around $100 million of capital every month.
“The business grew 10x in 2021 over 2020 which has allowed us to get into a leadership position in the market,” Aidan Corbett, Wayflyer CEO, told Insider. “Having economies of scale is important in this business and you need a strong balance sheet in order to do that.”
The company was spun out of Corbett’s previous startup, a data analytics platform called Conjura. The all-equity round was co-led by existing investors DST Global and QED Investors alongside three new investors; Prosus, Madrone Capital Partners, and JP Morgan. Existing investors Left Lane Capital and Zinal Growth, the family office of Guillaume Pousaz, the founder of Checkout.com, also participated.
Funding will go towards growing the company’s headcount across its offices in Dublin, Atlanta, and Sydney from 450 currently to around 750, Corbett told Insider. Wayflyer also expanded into new European markets The Netherlands and Spain late last year and will continue growing there as well as in Asia. Corbett also said the company was developing new products with increased investment in its analytics and engineering teams as it looks to offer more services to customers.
Funding was completed in a short period of time with Wayflyer receiving term sheets before Christmas. Corbett said that the unicorn valuation was a great validation of the company’s employees’ hard work and helps with hiring. “It’s a proof point that you can build unicorns in smaller countries like Ireland and we want to put it on the map,” he added.
Check out Wayflyer’s unicorn pitch deck below:
