UK BNPL FinTech Butter closes £15.8 million in funding

By Megha Bhattacharya

London-based FinTech platform Butter has closed a £15.8 million funding round to accelerate the rollout of its responsible open-banking based BNPL shopping app. The round was led by BCI Finance, the credit arm of London based venture builder Blenheim Chalcot, as well as a number of other private Angel investors.

Timothy Davis, Co-Founder and CEO of Butter, commented, “We’ve set out to achieve this by building a platform focussed around transparency, responsible lending and the ability to transact on bigger ticket items compared to other providers, whilst also offering more choice to customers through our unique over-the-top solution, which enables consumers to shop any online store in existence with Butter. The funding that we have secured via BCI will help facilitate the scale-up of our business as we continue to pioneer innovation in the buy now pay later space.”

Butter is a BNPL travel agency, providing a flexible, cost-effective way to book travel, with full payment not due until after the trip. A ‘layaway for getaways’. It has also launched a BNPL shopping app alongside their travel offering, enabling customers to spread the cost of any purchase from any online store.

According to Butter, it has developed a unique credit decisioning process with affordability at its core, utilising open banking and machine learning to ensure that lending is responsible and that customers are only able to borrow amounts based on what they can afford. Popular stores in the Butter app include Amazon, Argos, BooHoo, ASOS, H&M, Zara, Hugo Boss, Sports Direct, AirBnB, Currys PC World, Ao.com, IKEA and more.

Paul Maurici, Investment Manager at BCI, commented, “Our mission at BCI is to be the funder of choice for UK FinTech’s looking to scale. Butter is a young and ambitious company, which combines a tech-enabled approach to lending alongside impressive customer delivery capabilities. With its FCA authorisation already in place, the business is well placed to continue strong growth while assisting its customers in managing their money better.”