Wise lands £300m debt funding line

Payments giant Wise is still seeing rapid revenue growth more than a year on from its IPO but wants to turbo-charge this further via a new pot of external debt funding from six banks.

Listed fintech giant Wise has landed a new £300m syndicated debt facility to help its next stage of growth.

Silicon Valley Bank UK acted as lead arranger of the syndication, with six other banks participating, which has a hold level of £100m. 

Wise, which launched onto the stock market last year in an £8bn direct listing, previously had a syndicated facility with Silicon Valley Bank ahead of its IPO.

Its IPO valuation was hit soon after launch coming at a time of a sharp drop in investor sentiment toward growth focused companies. Throughout 

Wise saw its revenue grow by 33 per cent in the 12 months until the end of March 2022. In the next six months, its revenue growth accelerated to 54 per cent with quarterly revenue now c.£210m. 

“Our mission is to create money without borders - instant, convenient, transparent and eventually free. The new facility led by Silicon Valley Bank UK will offer us flexible and efficient access to working capital,” said Matt Briers, Chief Financial Officer at Wise.

“This means we can continue bringing our service to as many as possible and we can keep investing in making our payments faster, cheaper and more efficient for our millions of customers around the world,” he added.