Ingka Investments, the investment arm of Ingka Group which owns and operates IKEA stores, has invested US$22.5 million in US-based Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) firm Jifiti, for a minority stake in the company.

Ingka Group and Jifiti have a long-standing commercial partnership with the latter acting as a facilitator of IKEA Retail’s and consumer financing services.

IKEA, with their local banking partners in Spain, France, Portugal and Belgium have already been offering financing in their stores via the Jifiti platform since 2019 and are now rolling out into other countries.

The aim is to have the Jifiti platform facilitate the IKEA in-store and e-commerce point-of-sale financing across markets.

Ingka Group and Jifiti said in a joint statement that they will collaborate to develop and extend IKEA Retail’s financial services to its 706 million annual in-store customers and 3.6 billion e-commerce visitors worldwide.

The investment will enable Jifiti’s plans to enhance its technological and product development, and scale internationally to new markets.

The investment is the latest in a series of investments made by Ingka Group that will strengthen its core IKEA retail business by investing in innovative companies in areas such as digitalisation, customer fulfilment, fintech and sustainability, that support its ongoing transformation to become ever more affordable, accessible and sustainable.

Jifiti facilitates white-labeled point-of-sale financing solutions for banks, lenders and merchants to seamlessly deploy BNPL programmes.

“This deal will further our integration of easily accessible financing solutions into the IKEA offering. Our investment in Jifiti is another exciting step for Ingka Investments as it follows our recent other financial services investment in Ikano Bank.

 

We are confident this new investment will support us even more in becoming a life-long partner to our customers, by helping to improve their life at home and grow their businesses,”

said Krister Mattsson, Managing Director of Ingka Investments.

“This investment will empower both our organisations to achieve our goals in the point-of-sale financing space, and fuel Jifiti’s technological and international growth.

 

A partnership, such as ours, that serves the vision and purpose of both parties is poised for success and will have a positive impact on the BNPL industry.”

said Yaacov Martin, CEO and Co-Founder of Jifiti.

This article first appeared on Fintech News Baltics. 

Featured image: Edited from Unsplash