34.5 million to start. Qomodo, a fintech startup founded a few months ago, has closed one of the highest pre-seed investment rounds ever in Italy. The company has one objective: to bring a series of innovative payment solutions to physical stores, including the “buy now pay later” formula for essential, unexpected and essential expenses. The company was born from an idea of Gianluca Cocco e Gaetano De Maiotwo entrepreneurs with exits in the tech sector behind them in Italy and abroad between 2018 and 2022. In a few months, Qomodo has gained the trust of lead investor Fasanara Capital. But the funds Exor Ventures, Proximity Capital, Ithaca Investment, Lumen Ventures, The Techshop and Primo Ventures also participated in the round.
What Qomodo does
Qomodo promises to be a simplifier for merchants. It promises them to grow their business by guaranteeing the certainty of immediate, safe and transparent collections, and by increasing the spending possibilities of their regular customers through interest-free installment payments.
The startup positions itself on the market of digital payments as a payment system aggregator, designed to allow merchants to protect and amplify their cash flow and allow customers to pay in convenient interest-free installments with the Buy Now Pay Later formula.
“We have developed a new collection product, which offers merchants all the payment solutions needed today: from the traditional POS in the SmartPOS version, to innovative products such as Buy Now Pay Later, Pay-by-Link or Tap-to- Phone. In this way we bring innovation to many sectors that often suffer excessive technological delay and suffer from the slow and complex mechanisms of bureaucracy”, he commented Gianluca CoccoCEO of the company. Gaetano De Maio, COO of Qomodo, added: “Qomodo represents the additional suite of tools to grow your business, retaining your customers and winning over new ones. At the same time, thanks to the Buy Now Pay Later solution without interest and costs, consumers can satisfy their needs by accessing services.”
L’opzione Buy now pay later
It is the Buy now pay later option that arouses the interest of investors: “Buy Now Pay Later has revolutionized the world of online shopping over the last few years. Qomodo brings this technology to the service of physical retail in sectors that have been neglected until now, adding further payment solutions that improve the experience of merchants and consumers,” said Francesco Filia, CEO of Fasnara Capital. “We believe that Gianluca and Gaetano, with the team they are building, have the vision, experience and skills necessary to develop a solution perfectly calibrated to the needs of the sector, generating a significant impact and contributing significantly to its digitalisation”, added Antonio Assereto, CEO of Proximity Capital. Davide Fioranelli, CEO of Lumen Ventures, comments instead: “While many companies underestimate the potential of fintech products in offline channels, Qomodo stands out as an exceptional opportunity. There are two key factors behind this success: the proprietary scoring technology and the unique positioning of collection software”.
International investors such as Notion Capital, Octopus Ventures and Plug and Play Tech Center also participated in the round. While among the angels have joined: Mark Ransford, Luca Ascani, Attilio Mazzilli, Simone Mancini (Scalapay), Benedetta Arese Lucini, Kai Hansen (Lieferando), Giorgio Tinacci (Casavo), Stiven Muccioli (BKN301), Freddy Kelly (Credit Kudos) , Christer Holloman (Divido), Raffaele Terrone (Scalapay), LCA Ventures and Andrea Gennarini.
How the Qomodo model works
Qomodo is a collection platform that allows merchants to monitor their collection performance with a single dashboard. The payments managed are:
– “Pay with Qomodo”, the Buy Now Pay Later formula for interest-free installment payments offered by Qomodo: the customer chooses the installment plan and receives approval in about 30 seconds, without providing pay slips or other paper documents;
– “Qomodo POS”or a latest generation Android smartPOS – which accepts traditional credit/debit cards from the Mastercard, VISA and ATM circuits;
– “Pay on the fly”, i.e. the “Digital POS” mode which allows you to collect payments remotely made through cards with the system pay-by-link (for example for product sales or remote service assistance) or with the “Tap-to-phone”a technology that allows you to transform Android smartphones into POS (called “SoftPOS”) capable of accepting contactless payments.
In the end, Qomodo provides a call center active 7 hours a week and a team of account managers to follow its merchants in the activation phase, provide training and answer any doubts or questions relating to the functioning of the various products.
Through a convenient link sent via e-mail, text message or WhatsApp, the merchant forwards the request for payment in installments at a 0% rate to the end customer. The latter receives a response in approximately 30 seconds to approve the installment plan (acceptance rates are above 90%).
Qomodo it then pays the entire amount to the merchant for one of the most convenient commissions, always transparent and fixed. In this way, processes are dematerialized, eliminating the bureaucratic component of traditional interest rate financing, which requires filling out forms, providing pay slips and much longer approval times.