Zilch purchased Zilch.com to expand into US market
BNPL firm purchased zilch.com this year.
The concept of “buy now pay later” has become an increasingly popular means of generating more sales for top brands. If you browse the websites for Nike, Adidas, Peloton, or many other retailers, you might notice convenient prompts encouraging consumers to buy now and worry regarding paying at another time.
Firms providing these credit services have become immensely powerful. Klarna and Affirm are two of the largest “buy now pay later” (BNPL) providers. Klarna alone has more than 15 million clients and has partnered with over 250,000 retailers.
Combined, Klarna and Affirm have raised $5.2 billion, as stated by Crunchbase, and both reached unicorn status with ease.
Another BNPL operative has just joined the unicorn ranks. Zilch is a British firm founded in 2018 that is looking to muscle in on Klarna’s and Affirm’s business.
Zilch, an informal pronoun, is defined as “nothing,” with the firm likely branding around this word thanks to its policy of zero fees and a 0% interest rate on its services. (BNPL firms make their money by charging merchants a transaction fee.)
Zilch has seen a meteoric rise over the past year. From raising a $10 million Series A round in September 2020, the firm has scaled, raising around $330 million more since then.
Its latest round, $110 million of Series C funding, put Zilch well into unicorn territory, with the young startup now valued at $2 billion. It’s using the cash to expand into the US market. Interestingly, the firm has purchased a fresh domain to do this.
Zilch was content with using PayZilch.com in the UK, but for its US expansion, it has purchased Zilch.com.
As stated by WHOIS history, Zilch completed the buyout in April 2021, around the time it disclosed an $80 million Series B funding round. The domain was purchased from its long-time owners, who still own Zilch.net and Zilch.org. Although externally, it seems little has been done with these domains.
For Zilch, securing Zilch.com makes perfect sense. It’s entering a market to disrupt the likes of Klarna and Affirm, both of which operate on their exact-match .com. For a consumer-facing financial service, control of its exact-match domain name is extremely notable.
