London-based Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) firm Zilch has hit a $2 billion valuation after raising $110 million in a Series C funding round.

The round was led by Ventura Capital and Gauss Ventures, while existing investor Goldman Sachs also participated.

The $2 billion figure is quadruple the $500 million valuation it received in March of this year, when it raised $80 million.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) approved firm, founded in 2018 by current chief executive Philip Belamant in 2018, competes with Klarna, Afterpay, and Affirm in the increasingly crowded BNPL space.

Zilch said it will use the capital to fund its expansion into the US, where it has recently opened an office in Miami, Florida and secured a lending license in California.

The firm said it plans to hire 150 staff in the US over the next 12-18 months.

Zilch claims it currently has 1.2 million customers and is onboarding 200,000 new users a month.

Zilch is not the only BNPL firm to announce international expansion in the past week; Klarna launched in Ireland several days ago.

Challenger banks Monzo and Revolut also announced their plans to provide BNPL services to their customers in September.

According to payment firm Worldpay’s data, BNPL accounted for 2.1 per cent of international e-commerce transactions, around $97 billion, in 2020.

The BNPL sector’s growth is not without its issues. One in eight – 12 per cent – of consumers between 18 and 34 have been chased by debt collectors after using Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services, according to research by Citizens Advice.

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