equipifi raises $34m Series B to scale BNPL for banks and credit unions
US fintech equipifi has closed a $34 million Series B round led by Left Lane Capital, with existing investors Curql and PHX Ventures also participating. The round brings the Scottsdale, Arizona-based company's total capital raised to $49 million.
Founded in 2021, equipifi sells buy-now-pay-later technology directly to banks and credit unions, letting their customers split purchases into instalments inside the institution's own digital banking app rather than at a third-party checkout. The pitch is that BNPL, which has overwhelmingly grown outside the traditional banking system, should sit alongside debit and credit as a payment option owned by the consumer's primary financial institution.
"BNPL has become the third pillar of how consumers pay alongside debit and credit, and that shift is permanent," said equipifi founder and CEO Bryce Deeney. "Financial institutions are best positioned to own this space, and equipifi is building the network that will power them."
The proceeds will fund partnerships with a broader set of financial institutions and additional product development. The company plans to double headcount over the next year, with hiring focused on product and engineering.
Left Lane Capital managing partner Dan Ahrens said the firm sees equipifi as "building the defining network for flexible consumer payments across financial institutions" and described the company's bet as essentially that "instalment lending" belongs inside the bank, not outside it.
The raise comes as the BNPL market consolidates around two camps: the standalone players such as Klarna and Affirm, which continue to push deeper into card and banking products, and the bank-embedded model that equipifi and a handful of competitors are building. The size of the round and the participation of credit-union investor Curql suggests the latter camp is gaining traction with the institutions that have so far watched the standalone BNPLs eat their lending volumes.
