Scalapay Secures €70M EIB Scale-Up Debt to Fuel BNPL Innovation & EU Growth

The agreement between the EIB and Scalapay is significant both as a financial and policy milestone. €70 million under Scale-Up Debt—an instrument developed under the EU’s TechEU programme—has been earmarked for Scalapay to scale operations across key areas including product innovation, user flexibility, fraud detection and real-time analytics. [3] Given that this is funding rather than diluted equity, it reflects a strategic effort to preserve control and ownership for founders and earlier-stage investors while enabling expansion.

Scalapay sits within the rapidly evolving Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) landscape—a market under increasing regulatory and competitive pressure. Improving fraud detection and user flexibility is not just a customer-experience play; it’s foundational to operational risk mitigation, compliance, and retaining trust across markets. Given its presence in several EU countries, Scalapay’s enhanced R&D investment can yield competitive advantages and defensibility.

For the EIB and EU with InvestEU and TechEU, this deal serves as a precedent for scaling capital deployment into high-growth tech firms—especially unicorns—in Italy, a country that had fewer such flagship tech financing deals. Mobilizing €250 billion over three years will require replicating such transactions, especially in sectors like fintech that combine regulatory risk, digital transformation opportunities, and cross-border scaling potential.

Strategic implications include:

• Validation of tech ecosystems in southern Europe: For Italy and surrounding EU member states, this deal signals confidence in home-grown fintechs; it may encourage venture-capital inflows and support ecosystem development.
• BNPL credibility and scrutiny: With growing attention on BNPL from regulators (e.g. on consumer protection and credit risk), Scalapay’s improvements in security and fraud are likely prerequisites for sustainable expansion and access to new markets.
• Balance between growth and cashflow discipline: Debt financing imposes obligations; Scalapay will need to ensure revenue growth and prudent cost management to service debt without sacrificing strategic investments.
• Pre-IPO positioning: As Scale-Up Debt is intended for pre-IPO companies, this could shape Scalapay’s timeline to IPO, valuation expectations, and exit strategy for current investors.

Open questions to watch:

• What are Scalapay’s projected metrics (EBITDA, cash-flow, customer acquisition costs) illustrating the path to achieving sufficient scale to service debt and deliver returns?
• How will regulatory developments, both at EU level (e.g. credit and data protection laws) and in Scalapay’s foreign markets, affect its ability to expand?
• What is the competitive response from global BNPL players? Will this lead to intensified competition, consolidation, or premium pricing for partnerships?
• What timeline and process Scalapay has for an IPO, and how will ownership structure evolve given this debt-centric financing?