Did you catch the article in The Australian on Friday 26 July that mentions DelayPay? This is what it said:
Buy now, pay later start-up DelayPay has tapped the private credit market, raising $16m to ramp up its offering to farmers seeking alternative funding sources.
The capital raising was led by specialist private debt provider and existing DelayPay investor Longreach Credit Investors, and was supported by a small group of wealthy farmers and family groups.
Established by Victorian farmers Dwain Duxson and Kelsey Miller in 2018, DelayPay was one of the first buy now, pay later firms to target the agriculture sector, providing capital of up to $500,000 – for stock, machinery and feed which must be repaid within six months.
The company has provided more than $23m in funding to Australian farmers over the past 12 months. This week’s capital raising follows a Swarmer crowdfunding campaign earlier this year that raised $288,000 from a group of predominantly South Australian family offices, and will be used to support the company’s ambition to more than double the size of its loan book to $50m over the next five years.
DelayPay’s chief financial officer, Adelaide-based Anton Phillips-Chantelois, bought a small stake in the company two years ago through his family office Bridgemill Ventures. He said the company was now looking to increase its share of a market which could be worth $3bn based on the 30,000 small and medium-size Australian farming businesses that found themselves underserved by the major banks.
“If you think about the banks they look at two things – it’s LVR (loan to value ratio) and serviceability,” he said. “Property prices have skyrocketed over the past 10 years so LVRs – let’s say they’re keeping it at 40 per cent or 50 per cent as a cap – serviceability is nowhere near there from the traditional bank point of view.
“Where rates have gone, and with the appetite of the banks where it is, it’s just meant that more people are looking elsewhere about how to get a job done.” Longreach provided $15m in debt finance as part of this week’s capital raising, with the other investors contributing $1m in equity and mezzanine facilities.
Mr Phillips-Chantelois said the ambition was to get to a position where the company was funded solely by farmers.
“The benefits of that is that farmers understand what we do,” he said. “In a crude way, 50 per cent of farmers are successful, have cash in the bank and find new ways to invest, and 50 per cent of farmers are starting out, are building their business and need us. “So if we can sit as a conduit between the two, and provide a bit of rigour around how we provide capital and distribute returns, that’s a great thing.”
Other specialist lenders in the growing non-bank market include agPAY and Agrifunder.
Giuseppe Tauriello
The Australian