Alma

Alma is a French BNPL service provider co-founded by former Stripe executive Louis Chatriot. Alma allows customers to pay for purchases in two to four installments online or in-store for transactions ranging from EUR 50-EUR 2,000 (approximately USD 60-USD 2,400). Furthermore, its “Pay Later” feature enables customers to stagger payments between two weeks to up to a month after the purchase. The platform approves 95% of its applicants and integrates with e-commerce platforms such as Prestashop, Shopify, and Salesforce, among others. Additionally, Alma’s API can be used to integrate with customized merchant sites. Notably, France does not have a central credit scoring system, forcing Alma to depend on its in-house assessments to minimize default risk.

Alma’s merchant charges range between 2.0%-4.2% for merchants with up to EUR 1 million in sales, and depending on the number of installments, the platform charges 2.9%-4.4% of the transaction value for its “Pay Later” feature. In addition, merchants can choose to share the fees with customers. As of May 2023, Alma had over 11,000 merchants on its network compared to over 6,000 merchants signed up in February 2022 with the platform and it had exceeded EUR 1 billion (approximately USD 1.2 billion) in transaction volumes—a year earlier than their 2023 target.

Key customers and partnerships

In May 2023, Alma partnered with Numeral , an API-based payment process integration solution. Through this partnership, Alma planned to grow its merchant network further by offering more flexible payment options for shoppers through the facilitation of payment automation solutions with merchants in collaboration with BNP Paribas.  

Funding and financials

Alma raised EUR 210 million (approx. USD 239 million) in a funding split between Series C funding worth EUR 115 million (approx. USD 130 million) and EUR 95 million (approx. USD 109 million) in debt funding in February 2022 .  The fresh funding, which is likely to be diverted towards its European expansion, brings the company’s total to EUR 271 million (approx. USD 300 million). The Series C round follows its EUR 49 million (approximately USD 59.4 million) Series B round in January 2021. The platform also plans to expand its installment payment options to  6, 10, and 12 months.