year and effectively made Levchin the latest
PayPal alumnus to become a billionaire.
With its buy now, pay later widget on many
retailers’ websites, the company has seen
extreme growth in the past few years. Affirm
said in November that 8.7 million Americans are
using its buy now, pay later services, more than
double from a year ago. The company signed
up 1.6 million new customers in the U.S. and
Canada just in the last 90 days.
Tens of thousands of Americans became familiar
with Affirm and the buy now, pay later option
through its partnership with exercise equipment
company Peloton.
One of them is Fallon Oeser a 26-year-old
content strategist who lives in Ohio. She bought
a Peloton bicycle in the summer last year, when
the lockdown attracted many Americans to at-
home exercise equipment.
“I’ve got student loans, so I knew I was taking on
some responsibility here by taking out a loan.
But it made the purchase more accessible and it
worked for my budget,” she said.
Levchin, 46, said he started Affirm partly
because when he was younger credit cards
ruined his credit and buried him in interest and
fees. He said he wanted to create a financially
healthier product that would allow people to
buy things on credit.
“We knew it was going to be gigantic a long
time ago. It’s just at the kind of scale now where
it’s basically impossible to ignore,” Levchin said in
an interview in San Francisco.
The option to spread more routine purchases
over time is going to be even more widespread