Scalapay Brand Guidelines: The 2019 Milan Pay-in-Three Unicorn With Australian Roots

An Australian idea, launched in Italy.

Scalapay is a buy now, pay later company based in Milan. Corriere della Sera reported in February 2022 that it was founded in 2019 by Simone Mancini and Johnny Mitrevski, joined in the early stages by Raffaele Terrone, Daniele Tessari and Mirco Mattevi. The two founders had worked together for seven years before Scalapay, and the idea took shape in Australia, where both had lived for years.

Mancini explained the choice of market to TechCrunch in January 2021. He moved from Australia to Italy to start the company because Australia was, in his words, “one of the most competitive markets,” while Italy was “one of the most underdeveloped” for the service, with Afterpay already strong at home. Mitrevski stayed in Australia at first and ran research and development there, and Corriere della Sera reported in 2022 that the development team had been in Sydney before a second one opened in Italy. Mancini told the paper that the company’s first angel investors were the founders of an Australian pay-later business.

The first product was simple. TechCrunch described a quick sign-up followed by an agreement to repay a purchase in three equal instalments, taken from a bank account or card, with the company earning a commission from the merchant on each sale. Early retailers named by TechCrunch included Decathlon, Calzedonia and Bata, and the company soon became closely tied to fashion and luxury checkouts. Through a partnership with Raisin Bank, reported in the same article, it prepared to offer the service to merchants in other European countries, and its own site listed participating shops, which TechCrunch said sent shoppers on to retailers.

Fashion checkouts and a pink-led look.

Scalapay grew first through fashion. In September 2021 TechCrunch reported that it worked with about 3,000 merchants across nine European countries, from Italy, France and Germany to Spain, Portugal, Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria, and that fashion was its strongest category. Mancini said then that in luxury fashion the service accounted for a large share of transactions at some retailers. Corriere della Sera listed Moschino, Alberta Ferretti, Luisa Spagnoli and Intimissimi among its brand partners in 2022.

Its look drew comment early on. In January 2021 the TechCrunch writer noted that Scalapay’s website did not look unlike Klarna’s, and that both leaned heavily on pink as a colour theme. Today the company’s homepage leads with the line “If you love it, scalapay it,” shows purchases split into three monthly amounts beside product images, and offers a country picker for Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Finland. A store directory sorts merchants by category, and an app lets shoppers pay in a physical store by showing a barcode at the till.

The product range has widened. Mancini told Corriere della Sera in June 2026 that Scalapay had extended its own credit from three or four instalments to 12 and 24, and that for longer plans it works with partner banks: Deutsche Bank in Italy, BBVA in Spain and Younited in France. The same report described a single-use card with a spending limit, which Mancini said is used for about a fifth of Scalapay transactions.

Design and documentation.

Buy now, pay later providers sell a way of paying rather than a product, so most of their design work happens on other companies’ pages. A shopper meets the brand as a small wordmark beside a price, a badge in a row of card logos, or a button at the end of a checkout. Many of these marks are short, rounded names set in bright mint, pink, purple or plain black, and several providers publish kits for merchants with approved logos, lockups and banners in light and dark versions.

The second surface is the app. Providers show purchases as instalment schedules: a row of dates and amounts, a progress marker for payments made, and reminders of what is due next. Many also run shopping directories of participating merchants, with categories, deals and store pages, which turn the payment brand into a place to browse.

The third surface is explanation. Providers typically keep a page on how payments work, usually a sequence of three or four steps, and most carry dense small print: who the lender is, which licences apply, what fees and rates can be charged and where to go for help with hardship. In several markets these disclosures are set by regulators, and merchant kits often spell out which phrases need a full disclaimer and which claims may not be made at all.

The last surface is the investor page. Several providers are listed companies, in Sydney, New York or both, and publish results, presentations and announcements alongside their consumer sites. This guide sets out what can be checked about each provider — who founded it, who owns it, where it operates and how regulators have treated it — and gives company statements as the company’s own.

An Italian unicorn that stayed with its founders.

Scalapay raised money quickly. TechCrunch reported a first significant round led by Fasanara Capital in January 2021 and a Series A led by Tiger Global in September 2021; it also reported that the company had been approached by two would-be buyers that year and had said no. In February 2022 a Series B led by Tencent and Willoughby Capital made Scalapay an Italian unicorn. Corriere della Sera called it the third Italian startup to pass that mark, after Yoox and Depop, and wrote in June 2026 that it was the first of the three not to sell or list, so its direction stayed with Mancini and Mitrevski.

The company has since moved into a new Milan headquarters near the Scalo di Porta Romana, fitted out by Agilité with DWA Design Studio, Affaritaliani reported in July 2024. In 2024 it signed a securitisation agreement with BNP Paribas to fund its loan book, and in December 2025 Milano Finanza reported a scale-up debt financing from the European Investment Bank, which the paper described as the bank’s first for an Italian unicorn. Milano Finanza then gave the company about 15,000 merchants and 11 million customers; in June 2026 Corriere della Sera reported more than 12 million users, more than 12,000 merchants and activity in 15 countries, led by France, Spain, Belgium and Portugal outside Italy. Both papers noted that new EU consumer-credit rules covering pay-later services apply from November 2026, and Mancini said Scalapay’s systems were ready for them.

For a design guide, Scalapay shows how a pay-later brand can borrow the warmth of fashion retail, with pink-led colour and instalment amounts set beside the product. Compare Klarna, the Swedish company whose pink look TechCrunch compared it with, and Alma, the French pay-later company that TechCrunch named alongside Scalapay as a newer entrant in 2021. For this guide we use berry, blush pink and cream with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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