TECHEU SCALE UP - FINTECH

The project will support the promoter's investment plan in strengthening its research, development and innovation (RDI) activities (RDI) activities. The promoter, Scalapay, has developed a fintech payments platform operating in Southern Europe (Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal). The investment plan focuses on improving fraud-detection algorithms, enhancing security and user flexibility, and supporting growth through better data strategies, real-time analytics dashboards, and seamless system integration. These efforts aim to position Scalapay as a leader in intelligent financial decision-making and user engagement.

The aim is to support the promoter's efforts, which are expected to generate beneficial knowledge and technological externalities through the expansion of its intelligent financial decision-making Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) fintech service across several EU countries.

The Company is a scale-up that has substantial financing needs to fund its growth. The EIB's Scale-Up loan would contribute to the funding of that growth by helping to diversify the Company's capital structure away from expensive equity funding and reduce the dilution of the founders, VCs and management team.

The operation is in line with the InvestEU objectives of research development and innovation. Specifically, the eligible area as per Annex II of the InvestEU Regulation is: The development, deployment and scaling-up of digital technologies and services in particular through: artificial intelligence and robotics and automatisation.

The project aims to assist the Company in their research, development, and innovation efforts to enhance their competitive advantage and support the scaling-up of their intelligent financial decision-making fintech service platform in Italy, France and Spain and Western Europe.

This operation addresses market failures and gaps related to (i) imperfect competition contributing to expand new innovative process technology, and (ii) financial market failures arising from higher cost of financing due to high risk, innovative technology with lack of collateral.

It promotes investments in digital technologies that align with the EU policy goals, such as the Digital Europe Programme and Europe's Digital Decade targets for 2030. This initiative aims to enhance the sector's competitiveness for the benefit of citizens and businesses throughout the Union, while also supporting the Bank's policy objective of "Innovation, Digital, and Human Capital." These activities are anticipated to foster the accumulation and dissemination of knowledge within the European industry.

The project would not have been carried out (to the same extent) by the EIB without the InvestEU support.

The RDI activities will be carried out in existing buildings, with no significant environmental impacts expected. The project does not fall under the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive 2011/92/EU (as amended by Directive 2014/52/EU); therefore, no EIA is required.

The promoter is a private company not operating in the utilities sector and does not have the status of a contracting authority. It is thus not subject to EU rules on public procurement.