French fintech startup Alma banks €12.5 million to simplify installment payments for e-commerce and in-store merchants

French fintech startup Alma banks €12.5 million to simplify installment payments for e-commerce and in-store merchants

Alma, a French fintech startup that facilitates payment plans between merchants and buyers, has raised €12.5 million in capital from French investors Idinvest and ISAI, with an additional €17 million in debt.

Founded by Louis Chatriot and Guillaume Desloges in 2017, the Paris-based startup has over 1,000 merchants using its platform. Using Alma, the merchant gets paid in full and the customer pays overtime. The plug-in solution is available for e-commerce businesses, while in-store purchases can be processed through a computer or tablet.

A customer of Alma, RetroFutur’s managing director Matthieu Luong Van Thi explained the impact of the service: "In the Hifi sector, installment payments are widespread, not offering it is a competitive disadvantage today. The implementation seemed heavy and complicated, until we met Alma: within 24 hours the solution was up and running! The customer experience is simple and fluid, in our store as well as on our website. It is an additional service, now essential, for our customers.”

The round comes one year after the startup’s €3.3 million seed funding. With the new financing, the startup aims to quadruple its payment volumes (currently “several tens of millions of euros” per year) and the number of merchant users by the end of this year.

Alma will start by focusing on its home market in France, which offers more than 200,000 merchants. Eventually the company hopes to offer B2B payment installations as well.

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