Dublin-based unicorn Wayflyer, a company that provides revenue-based financing and growth platform for e-commerce businesses, announced on Monday that it has secured $300M (approximately €288.28M) in a debt financing round from J.P. Morgan, with Neuberger Bermann acting as a mezzanine provider.
Stuart Roberts, Global Head of Trade and Working Capital, J.P. Morgan, says, “We’ve focused on ways to continually support our e-commerce clients in their trade and working capital needs; with Wayflyer, we’re able to provide structured lending and help our e-commerce clients build credentials within this asset class. This will be one of many innovations within e-commerce structured lending from J.P. Morgan as we look to innovate within the industry and extend capital to our clients as they face high growth rates and require reliable capital to meet that demand.”
This development comes after Wayflyer’s recent €133M fundraise in a Series B round in February, 2022. The all-equity round, co-led by DST Global and QED Investors, and participated by J.P. Morgan, saw the company’s valuation hit $1.6B.
Capital utilisation
Wayflyer says that the proceeds will help the company increase its origination firepower and market share, as it continues to support a global market of over 300,000 e-commerce businesses that demand fair, flexible and affordable funding.
The funds will also reduce Wayflyer’s cost of capital, enabling it to offer competitive rates to e-commerce businesses across the US, Western Europe and Australia.
Aidan Corbett, CEO and co-founder of Wayflyer, says, “The $300M debt financing we’ve secured and partly deployed from J.P. Morgan will help us seize this opportunity, and enable us to offer the most competitive rates in the market to more effectively help ambitious e-commerce businesses realise their growth potential.”
Providing funding and insights to e-commerce businesses
Founded in September, 2019, by Aidan Corbett and Jack Pierse, Wayflyer helps e-commerce businesses grow by providing a range of financing and analytics solutions that improve cash flow, drive sales and optimise supply chains.
With its solutions, the company says that eligible businesses are given the flexibility to secure advertising space and inventory, paving the way for growth and profitability. The company’s free analytics platform also analyses marketing performance on a daily basis and equips e-commerce businesses with recommendations designed to improve performance.
Matthijs Onland, Country Manager NL & BE of Wayflyer, says, “E-commerce companies cannot always take full advantage of high customer demand due to limited inventories, higher advertising costs or slower production and shipping processes. With Wayflyer, we want to help these companies realise their potential without having to enter a slow process with the bank or sell shares at an early stage.”
In 2021, the Dublin-based startup expanded into new markets, including Spain and the Netherlands, opened a dedicated office in Atlanta, and formed partnerships with Adobe, Sezzle, and eBay UK.
Wayflyer has also reported that it increased its staff count by 525 per cent in 2021, up from 40 to 250, and its annual capital deployments grew over 900 per cent YoY.
And just over 10 days ago, in the first week of May, Wayflyer announced the acquisition of Peblo, a revenue-based financing provider to content creators. With this development, Wayflyer will help individual creators to have access to up to $2M in funding and expects to advance over $500M to creators over the next year.
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