UK unicorn Zilch plans to boost headcount by 150 to 450 as says on target for full-year profit

London-based Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) fintech Zilch said today (Thursday) it plans to increase its UK headcount by 150 to around 450 staff, as it says it’s on course to make a full year-profit.

The co-founder and CEO of Zilch, which is closely linked to London IPO, gave a resounding thumbs up to London as a tech hub, but cautioned the Labour government against making drastic changes to policies encouraging entrepreneurs to build businesses in the UK.

South African Philip Belamant said:

“Here, you quite literally have government saying 'the community here in his country is going to fund you, the entrepreneurs, to go and build this economy with us’. That’s unreal. And that is why so many people are drawn here.

“The real thing that I think we need to get right is, we need to keep that.

“We need to make sure these policies don’t move in a direction discouraging entrepreneurs from continuing coming.”

Zilch, valued at £1.65bn, currently has around 300 staff in the UK, but Belamant said Zilch plans to grow headcount to 450 in the next 18 months.

Speaking at the Innovate Finance fintech conference, Belamant earlier had said Zilch planned to hire more than 400 staff, but later clarified his comments, saying the BNPL firm planned to hire 150.

Hires will include management roles, data scientists and data engineers.

Fintechs becoming profitable, as they switch from growth at all costs to more sustainable finances, has been a long-standing trend in fintech.

Belamant said Zilch, which is backed by Goldman Sachs and eBay, had made its first quarterly profit and that it was on course to make a full-year profit in Zilch's current financial year.

On a potential London listing, Belamant pointed out that Zilch was a UK-headquartered firm, with British customers.

He said:

“We think ‘wouldn’t it be fantastic for businesses to list here?’ We think that is the right thing.

“We need liquidity in the stock market, we need pension funds to be buying British companies and holding those companies. And we also need to incentivise the public to buy more British stocks.”