Lendix Acquires Fellow Marketplace Lender Finsquare

French marketplace lender Lendix has acquired former competitor Finsquare.

Finsquare is a short-term, SME marketplace lending platform that formerly operated as a competitor to Lendix. Finsquare went live in 2014, and has since attracted a community of 3,500 active lenders, who have collectively lent over €4m to SMEs via the platform. Lendix has to date seen a little over €18m channeled through the platform, including a little shy of €7m in 2016 alone, according to the Liberum AltFi Volume Index Continental Europe. 

UK-based Funding Circle became the first platform to consume another in October of last year, when it acquired the Rocket Internet-backed SME lender Zencap. The acquisition of Finsquare is the first example, so far as we’re aware, of an acquisition between two platforms from Continental Europe.

Finsquare’s community of investors will now be migrated over to the Lendix platform, where they will continue to have access to their existing loan portfolios, as well as to fresh lending opportunities. Finsquare operated a kind of lender insurance scheme – and lenders have been assured that loans which were under the protection of this scheme will continue to be covered. The insurance mechanism will not apply to loans that are introduced to the marketplace from this point onwards, although Lendix COO Patrick de Nonneville said:

“We will have more announcements to make on lender protection during Q2.”

Finsquare Founders Polexandre Joly and Adrian Wiart will now focus their energies on another project – GoCreditPro – which was launched in October 2015, and is effectively a borrower-facing aggregator, described as the first internet broker platform for loans, leasing, factoring and flexible credit lines. The company will continue to enjoy close ties with Lendix.

No information has been given as to the valuation of Finsquare. Olivier Goy, Founder and CEO of Lendix, offered his thoughts:

“Finsquare’s product addresses a real demand from lenders and borrowers alike. It fits perfectly with our current offering, which is focused on longer term loans and financial leases. It’s a logical expansion of our range of financing solutions for SMEs.”