Australian fintech PayRight has raised over $30 million through a mix of debt and equity, with just over $26.5 million secured in the past 12 months led by corporate advisory firm Henslow in partnership with wealth manager Escala Partners.
Capital raised will be used to fund the company’s next phase of growth, including international expansion, deployment of its smart technology and custom-built platform, growth in the loan book, as well as continuing to hire talented individuals to deliver on growth objectives.
PayRight is an Australian payment plan provider that enables merchants to offer a buy now, pay later payment option to their customers. Intended for bigger ticket items that are more considered purchases rather than smaller impulse buys, PayRight practices responsible lending and performs extensive identification and credit checks to ensure a customer’s repayment capability. PayRight pays merchants upfront and in full on the same day and manages the customer’s repayments. Merchants include a diverse mix of broad-reaching products and services such as direct sales businesses, home improvement and education, to photography, dental, and health and beauty.
Co-founder and joint CEO of PayRight Myles Redward said there was a clear growth in the buy now, pay later space with a $300 billion opportunity in the addressable market.
“In the last 12 months we have experienced significant growth and we expect that growth to continue. We’re targeting $45 million in volume in FY19 and we are well on our way to achieving that goal. On a more strategic mid to long term horizon we are looking at $200 million in volume annually. PayRight currently has over 1,000 merchants on our books with around 200 new merchants joining the platform every month and we are excited to see what the future holds,” said Mr Redward.
Piers Redward, co-founder and joint CEO of PayRight, said, “My brother Myles and I saw a gap in the market and identified merchants with higher price point products and services were being underserviced. Putting our heads together and drawing on our finance backgrounds, we established PayRight to provide merchants the opportunity to offer their customers a payment option to accelerate the return-on-effort.
“We are seeing an increasing societal trend for spreading the cost of purchases and living expenses - consumers are moving away from credit cards with high fees and embracing more cost effective services such as buy now, pay later. We have also conducted extensive research around consumer spending patterns and the trend towards buy now, pay later as a form of payment rather than traditional payment methods such as cash and credit cards is on the rise - we expect that trend will continue into the future,” continued Mr Redward.
Andrew Woodmore, Director at Henslow said, “We have worked with PayRight for over two years and have been impressed with their ability to consistently exceed expectations. The Company provides a innovative and valuable solution to merchants and customers, and is well placed to continue significant growth as consumers continue to adopt buy now pay later solutions.”
Simon Dawkins, Head of Fixed Income Markets / Partner at Escala Partners, said,“We were very happy to join forces with Henslow in helping PayRight structure and fund their lofty but measured growth plans in the Australian ‘considered purchase’ payment plan market. We have a number of UHNW clients who are looking to invest in this alternative lending space (both debt and equity), and we see PayRight as the perfect vehicle for us to make those investments.”
PayRight is partner-led and has a consultative partnership approach with merchants. Aspects of the product and process are tailored to merchants, which ultimately benefits them, as well as their customers. Merchants transactions are settled the same day, upfront and in full and PayRight manages the customer’s repayments, mitigating any risk for the merchant, improving their cash flow and helping to increase profit for their business. PayRight adopts a number of responsible lending principles to ensure a positive customer experience, leading to additional referrals and repeat business for merchants.