Italian fintech startup Qomodo secures €34.5M for BNPL retail solutions

Qomodo, a Milan-based "all-in-one" payment methods aggregator, has raised €34.5 million in a Pre-Seed funding round. 

Offering a selection of payment solutions to both consumers and brick-and-mortar retailers, namely in the way of BNPL options for both, Qomondo is positioning itself as a helping hand to the latter. 

Looking at the number of challenges physical retailers face, Qomodo founders, former managing director Foodora Italy, Gianluca Cocco, and former SumUp country manager Italy, Gaetano De Maio sought to bring a new solution to the market. 

B2B BNPL

Along the lines of what Berlin-based Mondu has on tap, Qomodo is bringing the buy-now-pay-later financial mechanism to the B2B sector, allowing merchants a new avenue tapping into financing working capital to pay for often essential, yet unforeseen expenses. 

The company also tacks on the management of customer payments to its offer, thereby alleviating the stress of chargebacks, fraud, multi-currencies, etc.

According to the startup, its service has attracted some 500+ merchants while operating in stealth mode. Likewise, Qomodo says that they have a number of agreements in the works that will see the onboarding of “thousands” of physical retailers, including both independent and major chains, through the integration of an API.

Unicorn methodology

If BNPL solutions and Italy are ringing any bells (or aren't), you’ll be correct in remembering that consumer BNPL provider Scalapay lays claim to the title of Italy’s first-ever unicorn.

At the time of achieving unicorn status, Scalapay announced that it has partnered with retailers including Decathlon, Calzedonia, Moschino, Samsonite, Nike, and Pandora, and reported that it had ambitions to drill down even further to the retailer segment, pointing to a specialised platform, Magic.

However, as of today, Scalapay's Magic platform points to PayPal-owned Paidy.

Italy rising

In today’s environment, a €34.5 million raise is notable in its own right, but when considering that this is a Pre-Seed investment, albeit a mixture of equity and debt funding, and an Italian startup, i.e. a growing, but not yet quite ready for prime time, ecosystem, the significance of this round grows exponentially.

Qomodo’s €34.5 million Pre-Seed funding round was led by Fasanara Capital and saw co-investments placed by Notion Capital, The Agnelli family’s Exor Ventures, Proximity Capital, and others including Ithaca Investment, Lumen Ventures, The Techshop, Primo Ventures – along with the early-phase programs of Notion Capital, Octopus Ventures, and Plug&Play. 

Adding to the cap table are a number of angel investors including Mark Ransford, Luca Ascani, Attilio Mazzilli, Simone Mancini (Scalapay), Benedetta Arese Lucini, Kai Hansen (Lieferando), Giorgio Tinacci (Casavo), Stiven Muccioli (BKN301), Freddy Kelly (Credit Kudos), Christer Holloman (Divido), Raffaele Terrone (Scalapay), Andrea Gennarini, Giuseppe Lacerenza, Pietro Invernizzi, Serge Chiaramonte, William Neale.

Lead image: Qomodo team. Photo: Paolo Carlini