“Can a UK-anchored, seller-friendly marketplace differentiate on cashback and embedded seller finance to carve share from Amazon and eBay in Europe?”
Founded 2016 in Bournemouth as a fair-terms alternative UK marketplace to Amazon/eBay, growing on a promise never to compete with its own sellers. In 2022-2023 OnBuy re-platformed its payments stack, moving from a Stripe/PayPal setup to Nuvei for Platforms and becoming merchant of record — this unlocked Klarna BNPL, direct seller payouts via WorldFirst/Payoneer, and YouLend embedded seller finance. Now positioning around consumer 'Instant Cashback' as its differentiator while continuing to layer marketplace-embedded finance for sellers.
OnBuy processes payments through Nuvei for Platforms.
OnBuy's lending and capital products are provided by YouLend and Klarna.
OnBuy uses WorldFirst, Payoneer and Nuvei for Platforms for FX and cross-border payouts.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 3 layers in OnBuy's stack: Payments / PSP (Nuvei for Platforms); Lending (YouLend, Klarna, Seller finance via YouLend (£3K-£1M), Klarna Pay Now and 2 others); FX & payouts (WorldFirst, Payoneer and Nuvei for Platforms).
OnBuy was founded by Cas Paton and is founded in 2016, headquartered in Bournemouth, United Kingdom.
OnBuy has raised $50-100M in total (latest round: Series A+, £35M; valuation: $100-250M (2021)).
Get a read on where your own stack stands against OnBuy and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.