Newly crowned tech unicorn Wayflyer completes first major acquisition

CEO of Peblo Jake Browne and president and co-founder and CFO of Wayflyer Jack Pierse.

Wayflyer, the revenue-based financing and growth platform for eCommerce merchants, announced the acquisition of creator funding provider Peblo.

This is the first major acquisition for the tech unicorn, which is a privately owned company that is valued at more than $1bn (€875 million). 

The deal will enable Wayflyer to gain a significant presence in the influencer marketing space.

“By 2026, there will be an expected 15 million influencers worldwide, so the creator market is one that is too fast-growing for us to ignore,” said Corkonian Aidan Corbett, Wayflyer CEO and co-founder.

“This strategic acquisition means that both online brands and the creators they partner with to market their products will benefit from our best-in-class underwriting, funding and marketing analytics,” added Mr Corbett.

There are around two million creators globally, according to Forbes. Some influencers are earning six figures each per year. Often these creators must wait a considerable amount of time to get paid by their partnering brands, which restricts their ability to grow their business.

Irish company Peblo solves this issue by providing funding to creators, plugging the gap between upfront cost and client payment. Customers are able to view invoices, brand deals and outgoings on the platform.

Wayflyer stated its acquisition of Peblo will enable individual creators to access up to $2m (€1.8m) in financing, and the business expects to advance over $500m (€474m) to creators over the next year.

Peblo will also be able to connect influencers with relevant eCommerce brands through Wayflyer’s platform.

“Content creators are largely ignored in financial services, and by leveraging Wayflyer’s incredible resources we will now be able to change that,” said Jake Browne, Peblo CEO and co-founder.

Peblo will remain as a standalone brand and the business’s team of six will join Wayflyer’s rapidly expanding team which grew its headcount by 525% in 2021 and is looking to hire over 400 people globally by the end of this year.

The acquisition comes off the back of Wayflyer’s $150m (€134m) Series B fundraise in February, which has brought the Dublin-headquartered fintech’s valuation to $1.6 billion, which led to the company to joining an exclusive club of five other Irish companies with unicorn status.

Wayflyer also opened offices in Atlanta, Spain and Australia last year.