Bread, the consumer purchase finance technology company that builds customizable pay-over-time solutions for online merchants, announced today that it has completed $126 million of equity and debt financing.
Menlo Ventures led the equity round, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, RRE Ventures, and others. As part of the round, Mark Siegel, Menlo’s managing partner, will be joining Bread’s board of directors. The debt facility was provided by Victory Park Capital.
Bread improves conversion and raises average order value for retailers. For instance, an online furniture store could use Bread’s technology to offer its consumers the ability to pay for a sofa in easy-to-understand monthly installments.
Unlike products offered by other online-focused purchase finance companies, Bread’s unique technology allows each merchant to white-label the offering and optimize the experience for its customers. The Bread technology is not a credit card, but its approach reimagines the $100 billion offline private-label credit card industry, where finance companies allow merchants to extend their brands to the experience of financing and payment, strengthening the bond of loyalty with their customers.
Bread’s technology does not treat financing as a one-size-fits-all experience. With Bread’s solutions, different payment plans and different experiences can be tailored to a merchant’s product set. That functionality is innovative for a digitally-focused product. Other companies in the space focus on creating their own branded payments methods that work in standardized ways across merchants. Bread, on the other hand, is not just a branded checkout button.
“We are building online-focused, next-generation solutions,” said co-founder and CEO Josh Abramowitz. “Current private-label options were built for an offline world. They don’t speak the interactive language of e-commerce and don’t work well on the web. Bread’s technology offers a different type of solution. It is optimized for the web, and designed to bring purchase finance into the online era.”
Unlike with credit cards, Bread’s solutions are designed to be easy for consumers to understand. The cost of an item becomes a straightforward series of payments (e.g., perhaps $42 dollars a month for 24 months) without tricks. For merchants, this means customers feel they have been treated right.
The company has grown its volume by 5x over the past year as bigger merchants have begun to use Bread’s systems.
Bread says that it will use the new equity capital to grow its portfolio of merchant partners, as well as continue to grow its engineering team to build innovative solutions to further improve the product and consumer experience.
“What impressed us most is Bread’s intense devotion to its consumers and its merchants,” said Tyler Sosin, a Menlo partner. “When we speak with them, they simply rave about the product.” Tyler Ackerman, CEO of Bread’s merchant The RTA Store, said “Bread’s financing solution has grown The RTA Store’s business and offered our customers the ability to pay in the best way for them. The Bread team is exceptionally responsive, helps us build out our marketing strategy for financing, and works with our team to create the best possible customer experience every time.”
Bread loans are made by Cross River Bank, a New Jersey state-chartered bank, Member FDIC.
About Bread
Bread builds technology solutions that allow merchants to offer pay-over-time financing options to their customers. Bread’s product gives consumers clear and transparent options and gives ecommerce merchants powerful tools to integrate financing throughout the e-commerce journey, increasing conversion and average order value. Bread is backed by top-tier venture firms including Bessemer and Menlo Ventures. To learn more, please visit getbread.com.
About Menlo Ventures
Menlo Ventures provides capital for multi-stage consumer and enterprise technology companies. Since 1976, the firm’s market-driven analysis has led to the identification of opportunities and successful investments in innovative technology markets. Notable areas of investment include Marketplaces (Uber, Rover.com, Breather, RealtyShares, Getaround), Consumer services (Machine Zone, Tumblr, Betterment, Poshmark, Roku, Siri), Smart cloud infrastructure (Dropcam, 3Par, Avi Networks, Avere Systems, eero), SaaS (Carbonite, Signifyd, Clarifai, Overops, Usermind), Fintech (Betterment, Bluevine, Bread, RealtyShares) and Cybersecurity (Cavium, IronPort, BitSight, vArmour, Dedrone). Menlo’s portfolio includes more than 70 public companies and more than 100 mergers and acquisitions. Menlo Ventures has $5 billion under management and is currently investing Menlo Ventures XII, a $400 million fund with $15 million allocated to the Menlo Talent Fund for fast seed funding, and the Menlo Opportunity Fund, a $250 million fund that targets solely early growth investments. For more information, visit www.menlovc.com.
About Victory Park Capital Advisors, LLC
Victory Park Capital Advisors, LLC (VPC) is an alternative investment firm with a focus on providing privately negotiated debt and equity capital solutions to small and middle market companies across a wide range of industries. Victory Park targets fundamentally sound businesses in need of liquidity and/or capital structure transformation. The firm was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Chicago, with resources in New York, Los Angeles and London. VPC is privately held and a Registered Investment Advisor with the SEC. For more information visit: www.victoryparkcapital.com.
