Iwoca named among fastest growing international companies

Alternative finance provider Iwoca has revealed it is approaching £250m of lending under the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme (CBILS).

It comes as the firm was the highest ranked fintech in the Sunday Times International Track 200, which ranks the fastest growing companies by total sales.

The company ranked two places higher this year at number 20.

Read more: Everything we know about the CBILS successor scheme (so far)

Iwoca, which counts Zopa backer Augmentum Fintech as a shareholder, revealed it has lent almost £250m through CBILS and will continue to lend until the scheme closes.

The CBILS scheme is due to end on 31 March but there are rumours that it could be extended in the Budget next month.

“Iwoca was born out of the frustration that small businesses were struggling to find the finance they needed to reach their potential,” Christoph Rieche, co-founder at Iwoca, said.

“We knew that technology could significantly shorten the long, drawn out and frustrating processes the banks were putting small business owners through, so built a company to fix this problem.”

Treasury data shows £20.84bn of loans were approved under CBILS as of the end of January.

CBILS-approved lenders include Funding Circle, Assetz Capital and LendingCrowd.

Funding Circle said in November 2020 that it has lent more than £800m under the scheme.

Assetz Capital has previously said it is sifting through a CBILS pipeline of £300m.