MarketInvoice plans to double lending to £2bn

Since 2011, peer-to-peer invoice lending platform MarketInvoice has funded over £1.1 billion against invoices, and in 2016, the company was lending at a rate of £2,196 per minute to UK SMEs. With growth firmly on the agenda, co-founders Anil Stocker and Ilya Kondrashov announced the appointment of Giles Andrews OBE as chairman of the board of directors. He will work directly with the management team to drive scale in the business, tapping into over 25 years’ experience as an entrepreneur.

Andrews is the chairman of Zopa, the world’s first peer-to-peer lending platform, a business he co-founded in 2004 and led as CEO from 2007 to 2015, for which he was awarded OBE. Zopa quickly grew to become synonymous with fintech by providing better value and service to the UK consumer lending market. The fintech giant recently announced plans to launch a next generation bank to extend the range of products it can offer customers.

Additionally, Andrews is also chairman of Bethnal Green Ventures, an accelerator for start-ups using technology to make social or environmental impact. According to MarketInvoice’s Stocker, Andrews’ experience as an entrepreneur and investor will lend MarketInvoice the perspective and guidance it needs to hit its growth targets, while shaking-up and challenging the mainstream market. “MarketInvoice is committed to evolving its proposition in delivering smarter, faster finance to businesses and consistent returns for investors,” he said. Recently, MarketInvoice raised £7.2 million series B investment in a round led by European venture capital fund Northzone, and private equity group MCI Capital.

MarketInvoice’s strategic ambition is to broaden its reach by offering a wider range of lending products to a broader set of firms, from start-ups to businesses looking to scale-up, with the aim of helping these companies being paid faster by financing their invoices. For 2017, Stocker says MarketInvoice is gearing up to hit an ambitious £2 billion funding goal, following the launch of MarketInvoice Pro, a new funding product that offers larger businesses a credit line against all their outstanding invoices.