The BNPL fintech Kontempo has raised over $30M in a seed round led by Portage. The funding comprised $6.5M in equity and $25M in debt. Other participants in this round were Scor P&C Ventures, Upper90, Asymmetric Capital Partners, Tectonic Ventures, and Ignia.
Kontempo offers embedded payment and financing solutions for B2B commerces in Latin America. The fintech provides buy now, pay later (BNPL) installment plans that are interest-free to B2B customers.
BNPL plans for most B2B purchases and procurements typically involve high processing fees and delays. Kontempo’s founders saw this as an opportunity to fill a gap in the market:
“Kontempo sees an opportunity with its BNPL product to increase the use of digital payments in the B2B space, boost sales for both online and offline distributors and suppliers to SMEs, and be an early mover in building critical payments infrastructure for the still small but fast-growing B2B eCommerce market,” Matthew Meehan, CEO and Co-founder of Kontempo explained.
One significant differentiator of Kontempo’s product is that it allows customers to approve credit with net terms of 30, 60, or 90 days. Supplier credit or credit cards only have, on average, 30-day payment terms. Also, companies can use an API provided by Kontempo to allow customers to pay via installments directly on their checkout page. This option does not require credit card or bank account information.
Kontempo also uses an algorithm to determine credit worthiness, which in turn helps the startup get to SMEs that typically struggle to qualify for credit:
“Kontempo has signed contracts with 26 merchant partners in Mexico. These 26 merchant partners represent access to over 100,000 SME ‘buyers,’ or end-users, of our product,” Meehan detailed.
The new funding will be invested in growing its team, developing its merchant network, and continue improving its technology.
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