MarketInvoice gets £45m funding boost from German bank
MARKETINVOICE has signed an agreement with German private bank Varengold to provide £45m of funding annually to UK SMEs via its platform.
The peer-to-peer invoice finance firm said on Tuesday that it had seen greater interest from global institutions, along with a rise in funding levels, since February’s launch of MarketInvoice Pro, which offers slightly larger businesses a funding line against their outstanding invoices.
Anil Stocker (pictured), chief executive and co-founder of MarketInvoice, said the commitment from Varengold was further proof of its ability to provide finance to high-growth businesses across the country.
“I’m sure we’ll see many more examples of this type of collaboration in the coming months,” he added.
Dan Walker, head of the London office at Varengold Bank, said it had been looking at the fintech sector for some time and MarketInvoice presented a fitting opportunity.
“In particular, we were attracted by their products, approach to risk management and ambition for growth,” he said.
The amount of money advanced to businesses from institutional investors via MarketInvoice has increased more than four-fold since 2014 from £27.8m to £116.3m in 2017, the firm said.
In May this year, MarketInvoice sealed a similar deal with Portugal’s Banco BNI Europa, for the online bank to provide annual funding of £45m.
MarketInvoice, which is backed by private equity group MCI Capital and European venture capital fund Northzone, also announced that it has reached a milestone of providing £1.5bn of funding to UK businesses.
August proved to be a record month for the firm, when £74.1m worth of invoices were funded to businesses, a 109.4 per cent increase on August 2016’s figure of £35.4m.
Stocker said the ability for businesses to fund their working capital was vital to the success of small companies dealing with growing orders and long payment terms.
“This funding has supported fast growing companies to launch new products, hire more staff, and export to new markets,” he said.
MarketInvoice achieved a record trading day on 31 July, channelling £4.1m to UK businesses – over £1m more than its daily average of £3.2m. That followed a record three months for the platform, with £161.9m of invoices funded in the second quarter of 2017, a 57.2 per cent year-on-year increase.
Last month it announced a partnership with credit management firm Veritas Commercial Services, which gave the lender access to more than 400,000 smaller businesses.