Uplift, provider of buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) solutions used by more than 300 airlines, cruise lines and hotel chains in the United States and Canada, has been sold for USD $100 million.
The buyer is Upgrade, a San Francisco-based company offering banking, credit and payment products directly to consumers.
Uplift founder and CEO Brian Barth, who launched the company in 2013, will continue to lead Uplift’s strategy, reporting to Upgrade CEO Renaud Laplanche, and the company's 150 employees will also move to Upgrade.
However, it's not yet known if the brand Uplift will be retained under the new ownership.
Uplift has continued to grow as by-now-pay-later options for travel have become more popular. The company allows consumers to make multiple payments for a travel booking over a number of months, and include options for 0 per cent financing. That benefits supplier partners via increased conversions, size of booking, and ancillary sales.
“We’ve been building this business for a long time, and we continue to see opportunities where we can expand our reach beyond just a financing tool and really making this into a marketing tool for partners,” chief commercial officer Tom Botts said.
“And part of that requires new financial products as well as additional capital to support those partners. And the great thing about Upgrade is they have both – they have wonderful financial products that we can offer to partners … as well as access to far greater capital, because we have to borrow capital to lend it to consumers. Their size and scale just makes that a vastly more efficient operation.”
