London travel fintech secures £10m funding for international expansion

A London travel industry fintech has raised £10m as it plans to launch in the US and Germany.

Fly Now Pay Later, which provides flexible payment options for travel customer, has raised the funding through an investment round co-led by asset management firms Revenio Capital and Taurus Wealth Advisors, bringing the company’s Series A investment total to £45m.

The company was founded by Jasper Dykes in 2015 to address a perceived lack of payment flexibility in the travel industry. The alternative payments provider can spread the cost of a trip over 12 monthly instalments and can be used to book flights, hotels, package holidays and rental cars.

It has hundreds of current partnerships including both SMEs and large operations such as Malaysian Airlines, Lastminute.com and TravelUp.

The company employs 70 staff across the UK and Europe and plans to use the investment to launch US and German operations. According to Dykes, leisure domestic travel in the US has been less impacted than in Europe, with flights operating at “75 per cent of pre-pandemic levels” during peak holiday season.

With over $100bn annual spend, the US commercial aviation market is the world’s largest, and Fly Now Pay Later has been beta testing its technology there for the last 6 months in preparation for its planned expansion, with its sights set on creating upwards of $1bn in enterprise value over the next 18 months.

Jasper Dykes, CEO of Fly Now Pay Later, commented: “The last 12 months have been an unprecedented period for the commercial travel sector with the worst slow down ever recorded in history.

“The recovery of travel is likely to be gradual, but when it happens, we hope that by giving people the freedom to book a trip and pay at a pace that works for them, will help spur reservations.”

Kitarack Chapman, director at Revenio Capital, added: “By removing financial boundaries, we hope to open the post-covid-19 world for travellers and reconnect people with their friends and families around the globe.

“We’re proud to support the company and its experienced management team as they continue to make life easier for travellers and merchants worldwide with their innovative and tech-enabled financial solutions.”

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