Short-term finance provider iwoca has secured £5 million of new growth capital, a year after its last funding round.
The London-based firm has now raised £7 million in total, with its latest transaction seeing Global Founders Capital and Redline Capital Fund join Beyond Digital Media and Talis Capital as backers.
The technology business was set up by ex-Goldman Sachs VP Christoph Rieche and former Deutsche Bank VP James Dear. It’s offering targets businesses selling through platforms such as eBay and Amazon and provides loans of between £100 and £20,000 for a maximum period of three months.
With £5 million in the bank, iwoca says that it will now scale up UK operations as well as those internationally so that it can lend to a further 5,000 small businesses in the UK during 2014. The firm is also looking to continue with its research and development efforts into the small business lending landscape.
More on small business lenders:
- Zopa attracts Augmentum and Forward Venture as equity backers
- Peer-to-peer lending service auxmoney rubber stamped by Index
Rieche, CEO and co-founder of iwoca, says that the UK e-commerce space is experiencing double-digit growth, building on the 4.6 million businesses that already exist.
‘This latest round of funding will allow us to leverage our existing operations and drive growth,’ he adds.
‘Our highly innovative approach to data-analysis and credit scoring coupled with Oliver Samwer‘s [one of the founders of Global Founders Capital] experience in franchise building puts us in an incredibly strong position to take advantage of the structural change within the business lending industry.’
New backer Global Founders Capital is based in Luxembourg and is currently investing in internet businesses from its €150 million fund. Oliver Samwer’s set up the firm alongside his brother Marc and Delivery Hero co-founder Fabian Siegel.
Siegel believes that the iwoca team has demonstrated ‘extraordinary’ execution skills. ‘We will put our expertise in building internet companies and our global network at their disposal to help them drive growth,’ he says.
