Goldman Sachs backs French marketplace lender Younited Credit in $170m funding

July 8, 2021

French startup Younited Credit has raised a $170m funding round led by Goldman Sachs to scale its data-driven credit offering.

Existing investors Eurazeo, Bpifrance and AG2R La Mondiale also participated.

With 440 employees currently, the firm plans to hire another 200 people over the next 18 months and double down on European markets.

Founded in 2009 to simplify the credit process for consumers and businesses, Younited operates a cloud-only SaaS platform that uses data from open banking to make lending decisions.

Younited Credit also plans to explore embedded finance with credit products that appear on the checkout page of popular e-commerce websites and apps. The company will compete with ‘buy now, pay later’ companies, such as Klarna, Floa, Oney, Scalapay, etc.

Named Younited Pay, the company plans to offer a wide range of options with payment terms spread over 3 to 48 months. Some companies are already using Younited Pay, such as Free, Micromania and LDLC.

Younited Credit differentiates itself from legacy players with a data-driven, AI-based approach. Instead of sending a ton of documents to your banker, Younited Credit tries to automate request processes as much as possible.

The company takes advantage of DSP2 regulation and open banking APIs to ingest data. As the startup has facilitated a huge volume of credit offering, it can also leverage past data for machine learning risk models.

So far, Younited Credit has granted more than €2.4bn in credit. It operates in five European countries. While France is still the company’s leading market, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Germany represent 40% of Younited Credit’s revenue.

More recently, the company started embedding its product into third-party products. For instance, banks and FinTech companies offer credit products in their apps after partnerships with Younited Credit. Examples include N26, Lydia, Orange Bank and Fortuneo. In 2021, the B2B offering represented 30% of Younited Credit’s net banking income.

Commenting on the round, Younited CEO Charles Egly, CEO said, “Within nine years, through huge technological investment, Younited has changed the rules of the game, and has profoundly transformed credit and payment practices. Structured to avoid risks from excess debt, while remaining fair and ethical, credit is the key driver of economic and consumer revival.”