Sequoia Backs Try-Before-You-Buy Solution Elyn in €2.5M Raise — Retail Bum

Paris-based try before you buy (TBYB) solution Elyn has raised $2.7 million (€2.5 million) in a pre-seed round led by Headline and Sequoia Arc.

As its name suggests, the solution aims to provide greater payment flexibility for online purchases by allowing shoppers to try items before confirming their purchase with a payment.

The solution is already seeing an uptick in adoption and has become a key selling point for European clothing eCommerce store Zalando. It works by allowing Zalando customers to enter their payment card details, use PayPal, or pay later when making a purchase. If customers opt to pay later, their card is charged a few days after they receive the items. If items are returned, the customer can block the payment before they are charged.

Elyn is looking to make this experience more accessible and mainstream by offering the payment solution to smaller retailers and brands in France and other European markets where credit cards are less widespread than in the U.S.

“With try-before-you-buy, you only pay for what you decide to keep,” Elyn co-founder and CEO El Mehdi Hachad told TechCrunch. “We are also helping retailers with their returns so that return requests are turned into exchanges directly in the return interface that we…