Fly Now Pay Later paused lending and new customers after raising nearly $180M

London-based travel buy-now-pay-later lender that lets travellers spread booking costs over up to 12 months

Pausing new lending and onboarding while it makes improvements, with existing accounts still serviced, is a temporary fix before services resume

About $177.7M in total: $75M debt from Atalaya Capital Management in January 2022 for US expansion, and a £45M Series A in 2021 led by Taurus Wealth Advisor and Revenio Capital

Fly Now Pay Later launched in 2015 to bring buy-now-pay-later to the travel industry. Founder Jasper Dykes is a fintech entrepreneur, and the company partnered with Malaysia Airlines and the Universal Air Travel Plan.

In 2021 it closed a £45M Series A, and in January 2022 it raised $75M in debt from Atalaya Capital Management earmarked for US expansion. In October 2023 a notice on its website said it was not taking on new customers or engaging in further lending while it put improvements in place, and that existing accounts and services would continue as usual.

By 2023-10-11 the firm had temporarily stopped lending and onboarding; a support officer said it could not give a timeframe for when services would be fully restored.

The company said only that it was making improvements to better serve customers

It had raised debt for US expansion, so pausing new lending halts the use of that financing

Existing accounts continued, showing the pause targeted new loans and customers

No timeline was given, so the reason beyond the notice is not public

A lender that stops lending without explaining why leaves outsiders guessing; the only facts here are the notice and the funding history, not a reason or a restart date.

As of 2023-10-11, Fly Now Pay Later had paused lending and onboarding with existing accounts still serviced and no restart date given.