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Affirm launches in the UK, as ‘buy now, pay later’ market faces regulatory overhaul

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Buy now, pay later (BNPL) giant Affirm is launching in the U.K., its first market outside North America.

Its long-anticipated arrival comes as U.K. lawmakers mull new rules to bring BNPL firms into line with other traditional consumer credit services, though such laws aren’t expected to come into effect until at least 2026 — long enough for Affirm to build traction, and curry favor with consumers and regulators alike.

Founded in 2012, Affirm emerged from a startup incubator called HVF, setup by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin (pictured above) who eventually took the reins at Affirm in 2014 to drive its commercial push. The company expanded beyond the U.S. and into Canada in 2022, and it has struck lucrative partnerships with major ecommerce companies through the years — Affirm has been Shopify’s major financing partner for close to a decade, not to mention Walmart, and Amazon, which tapped Affirm as Amazon Pay’s first BNPL partner in the U.S. last year. More recently, Affirm also secured the mighty Apple as a customer.

‘Normalizing debt’

The BNPL model is simple: customers are invited to purchase goods on credit, repaying the debt in several interest-free instalments, with the BNPL provider monetizing through merchant fees. Or, where the customer may require a longer repayment period, the loan may include interest, too.

The BNPL market has long been on the U.K. regulatory radar, with incumbents such as Klarna and Clearpay often criticized for encouraging impulse buying and normalizing debt. The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has hitherto had some power to keep BNPL providers in check, but there are key exemptions, such as services that involve interest-free credit, where fixed-sum agreements stipulate that debts be repaid within 12 months.

But new rules in the works could bring BNPL companies fully in line with other consumer credit companies. The Labour government last month announced a fresh BNPL consultation, with plans to introduce regulation to “ensure people using BNPL products receive clear information, avoid unaffordable borrowing, and have strong rights when issues arise.”

It’s clear that Affirm is already pushing to position itself favorably both with patrons and the the powers-that be. Indeed, the company notes for the U.K. launch that its interest-bearing payment options won’t involve compound interest — instead, interest will be fixed, and calculated entirely on the original amount borrowed.

It’s also worth noting that Klarna started charging late fees in the U.K. last year, and this is one area where Affirm is setting out to differentiate — it says it won’t be charging late fees or any other “hidden charges.”

Head-to-head

It has been a bumpy few years for the BNPL sector. Klarna was valued at more than $45 billion in 2021, a figure that swiftly plummeted by 85% to $6.5 billion following the great post-pandemic “correction” many companies endured — however, news emerged last week that Klarna’s valuation has risen again to $14.6 billion. It has been a similar turbulent time for Affirm, whose ups and downs have followed a trajectory reminiscent of its European rival.

Following its 2021 IPO, Affirm saw its market cap hit the giddy heights of $47 billion, but its stock took a giant hit, with its market capitalization dropping below $3 billion last year. However, Affirm’s shares have surged to more than $13 billion in 2024, with the NASDAQ-listed company recently reporting a Q4 year-on-year revenue jump of 48%, and losses dropping from $206 million to $45 million. Levchin also predicted profitability in 2025.

We’ve known for some time that the U.K. was likely going to be Affirm’s next port-of-call outside the U.S. and Canada, with the firm’s chief revenue officer Wayne Pommen going on record to say that it would be targeting markets where some of its largest existing partners already have a presence.

For its U.K. launch, there aren’t any of the same big-name brands it has domestically, but the fact that it counts the likes of Amazon, Shopify, and Apple as customers in the U.S. means that it wouldn’t be a huge stretch to expand such commercial partnerships to the U.K. For now, though, Affirm is going to market with the like of flight booking site Alternative Airlines and payments processor Fexco, with “additional UK and international brands expected to follow.”

In the build up to today’s launch, Affirm told TechCrunch that it has already hired in the region of 30 employees, including Ruth Spratt who’s leading the local charge, while it’s also looking to add to its headcount through the remainder of the year. And similar to its remote-first ethos elsewhere, workers aren’t tethered to a particular physical hub.

The company wouldn’t confirm its next plans for growth in Europe or elsewhere, though it said that it would be “taking the same disciplined approach” that it has always done to any future expansion.



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ElevenLabs’ AI voice generation ‘very likely’ used in a Russian influence operation

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Generative AI has a plethora of well-documented misuses, from making up academic papers to copying artists. And now, it appears to be cropping up in state influence operations.

One recent campaign was “very likely” helped by commercial AI voice generation products, including tech publicly released by the hot startup ElevenLabs, according to a recent report from Massachusetts-based threat intelligence company Recorded Future.

The report describes a Russian-tied campaign designed to undermine Europe’s support for Ukraine, dubbed “Operation Undercut,” that prominently used AI-generated voiceovers on fake or misleading “news” videos.

The videos, which targeted European audiences, attacked Ukrainian politicians as corrupt or questioned the usefulness of military aid to Ukraine, among other themes. For example, one video touted that “even jammers can’t save American Abrams tanks,” referring to devices used by US tanks to deflect incoming missiles – reinforcing the point that sending high-tech armor to Ukraine is pointless.

The report states that the video creators “very likely” used voice-generated AI, including ElevenLabs tech, to make their content appear more legitimate. To verify this, Recorded Future’s researchers submitted the clips to ElevenLabs’ own AI Speech Classifier, which provides the ability for anyone to “detect whether an audio clip was created using ElevenLabs,” and got a match. 

ElevenLabs did not respond to requests for comment. Although Recorded Future noted the likely use of several commercial AI voice generation tools, it did not name any others besides ElevenLabs.

The usefulness of AI voice generation was inadvertently showcased by the influence campaign’s own orchestrators, who – rather sloppily – released some videos with real human voiceovers that had “a discernible Russian accent.” In contrast, the AI-generated voiceovers spoke in multiple European languages like English, French, German, and Polish, with no foreign-soundings accents.

According to Recorded Future, AI also allowed for the misleading clips to be quickly released in multiple languages spoken in Europe like English, German, French, Polish, and Turkish (incidentally, all languages supported by ElevenLabs.)

Recorded Future attributed the activity to the Social Design Agency, a Russia-based organization that the U.S. government sanctioned this March for running “ a network of over 60 websites that impersonated genuine news organizations in Europe, then used bogus social media accounts to amplify the misleading content of the spoofed websites.” All this was done “on behalf of the Government of the Russian Federation,” the U.S. State Department said at the time.

The overall impact of the campaign on public opinion in Europe was minimal, Recorded Future concluded.

This isn’t the first time ElevenLabs’ products have been singled out for alleged misuse.  The company’s tech was behind a robocall impersonating President Joe Biden that urged voters not to go out and vote during a primary election in January 2024, a voice fraud detection company concluded, according to Bloomberg. In response, ElevenLabs said it released new safety features like automatically blocking voices of politicians.

ElevenLabs bans “unauthorized, harmful, or deceptive impersonation” and says it uses various tools to enforce this, such as both automated and human moderation. 

ElevenLabs has experienced explosive growth since its founding in 2022. It recently grew ARR to $80 million from $25 million less than a year earlier, and may soon be valued at $3 billion, TechCrunch previously reported. Its investors include Andreessen Horowitz and former Github CEO Nat Friedman. 



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YouTube’s new auto-dubbing feature is now available for knowledge-focused content

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YouTube announced on Tuesday that its auto-dubbing feature, which allows creators to generate translated audio tracks for their videos, is now rolling out to hundreds of thousands more channels. 

YouTube first introduced its AI-powered auto-dubbing tool at Vidcon last year, which was only being tested with a limited group of creators. This tool could help make content on the platform more accessible and easier to understand for people all over the world.

The auto-dubbing feature is now available to channels that are focused on informational content, such as videos that teach viewers how to cook or sew. It’ll expand availability to other types of content soon. 

To use the feature, simply upload a video as you normally would. YouTube will automatically detect the language and create dubbed versions in other languages. The tool supports English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Image Credits:YouTube

YouTube’s auto-dubbing utilizes Google’s Gemini capabilities to replicate human speech. However, the company cautions that the feature may not perform perfectly, as the technology is still in its early stages of development.

“We’re working hard to make it as accurate as possible, but there might be times when the translation isn’t quite right, or the dubbed voice doesn’t accurately represent the original speaker. We really appreciate your patience and feedback as we continue to improve,” the company wrote in Tuesday’s blog post. 

The company also reminded creators that they can look forward to another upcoming update called “Expressive Speech,” which is designed to help replicate the creator’s tone, emotions, and even the ambiance of their surroundings.



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CarDekho SEA raises first-ever outside funding, co-founder says he’s interested in acquisitions

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CarDekho SEA, a Singapore-based auto financing service platform, has raised $60 million in equity, valuing the company at over $300 million, from Navis Capital Partners and Dragon Fund. This is its first round of external funding, following a previous investment of $40 million from its parent company, CarDekho Group.

The company, the Southeast Asia unit of India’s CarDekho Group, will use the funding to support its further expansion into Southeast Asia, focusing on the used car and bike financing industry in Indonesia and the used auto financing sector in the Philippines, Umang Kumar, co-founder and president of CarDekho, said in an interview with TechCrunch.  

Kumar told TechCrunch that acquiring a used car financing platform or insurance brokerage platform in Indonesia and the Philippines could be one of its strategies to increase their presence in the region.

“We do have a couple of assets lined up in terms of what we will look at. You may hear something along those lines within a month or two…we will actively look at acquiring activities. The idea is not completely organically built. So we will look at some inorganic acquisition as we build out our business across Southeast,” Kumar said.

Founded in 2020, the company already has a significant presence in Indonesia (OTO Indonesia) and the Philippines (Carmudi Philippines and Zigwheels Philippines). It’s also in a few other Southeast Asian markets, such as Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam, and is eyeing expansion into new markets in 2026.

Kumar explained that the company initially had a joint venture partner in Indonesia but later bought out the local partner entirely, becoming the 100% owner of the entity between 2019 and 2020. The company’s acquisition spree continues as it acquired Carmudi, which operates in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand, in 2021 to expand into SEA, Kumar explained.

Unlike its peers, CarDekho SEO acts as a comprehensive aggregator for auto financing services. Its main competitor used to be Moladin, which has now pivoted to become a full-fledged lender.  

CarDekho SEA highlights its edges, including its technology-driven loan procedures, asset-light marketplace approach with no credit risk, an extensive network of used car dealers and agents, and solid collaborations with financial institutions. CarDekho SEA will use AI and machine learning solutions to reduce fraud and credit risks and provide more data to their financing partners to succeed in a changing technological environment.

Since its launch, the company has experienced significant growth, with over 200,000 disbursements and over $1 billion in loans disbursed. This represents a 50x increase in gross merchandise value over the past three years and establishing partnerships with over 50 financiers and 20,000 dealers and retail agents.

Its primary customers are small-scale used car dealers, with many having less than ten cars in stock or no physical showroom at all. “Due to their sub-scale presence, financiers often find it challenging to serve them directly,” the CEO said. “Our platform aggregates demand from these individual dealers, connecting them to a wide network of financiers and offering access to a variety of financial products for themselves and their customers—products that were previously inaccessible to them.”

The company is in the scale-up phase, generating upwards of $50 million in revenue annually through per-loan commissions with the financiers.



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