Here’s what your BNPL startup could be worth

Published September 14, 2021

It’s a two-Exchange Tuesday, everyone. First up, we’re talking fintech valuations. Next up, we’re digging into Atlanta.

Last week’s news that PayPal intends to buy Japanese startup Paidy marked the second major acquisition of a buy now, pay later (BNPL) company this year. PayPal’s news followed an even larger deal by Square for the Australian BNPL company Afterpay.

The multibillion-dollar exits provided hard market proof that what BNPL startups are building has value beyond simple operating results; major fintech platforms are willing to shell out large sums for their revenues and possible strategic value.

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Because both deals happened in 2021, they provide two data points for the value of BNPL companies operating at scale. And because both Square and PayPal provided some information to their investors concerning their transactions, we have a little bit of comparative work to do.

Let’s do a little math and figure out how much PayPal and Square investors are paying for transaction volume across both platforms. Then, we’ll peek at what Affirm is worth along similar lines. We’ll wrap with a look at Klarna’s numbers to see if there’s anything we can dig up there.

Our goal is to find out what sort of price floor or ceiling the Paidy and Afterpay deals imply, if other players in their space are matching that figure, and why. This will be fun!

What would you pay for $1 of BNPL GMV?

Square’s Afterpay deal is worth some $29 billion, a huge sum. It isn’t hard to see why the U.S. consumer- and business-focused fintech is willing to write so large a check — Afterpay does volume.