Lendix – a French marketplace lending platform for SMEs – has been authorised by the Spanish regulator, and will soon be launching an offshoot in Spain. Lendix closed a €13.5m Series B investment round in April, a round led by the French insurance firm CNP Assurances. The company indicated at the time that it intended to use the funds to expand into Spain and Italy.
Lendix joins MyTripleA, a peer-to-peer lender for small businesses, and the equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube Spain in getting the green light from the Spanish Securities Exchange Commission (CNMV). Lendix will compete directly with MyTripleA, which has to date lent over €4m to Spanish SMEs. Other competitors include Comunitae,LoanBook,Viventor and Arboribus. These platforms have lent a grand total of around €45m between them, with Comunitae contributing €30m of that total, according to the Liberum AltFi Volume Index Continental Europe. Funding Circle Continental Europe also has a presence in Spain, but we do not know how much the company has lent within that specific jurisdiction. Lendix has lent a little shy of €30m to French SMEs to date.
Lendix is recruiting 6 people in Spain in 2016 and will consider an additional 10 hires throughout 2017 to build out the team. The Spanish operation is scheduled to go live in Q4 this year. The platform will facilitate loans of between €30k and €2m for terms of 18 to 60 months. Interest rates range from 5.5% to 12%. Borrowers will need to generate a turnover of at least €400k a year to be eligible for a loan. Non accredited private investors will be able to invest up to €3k per project, with a maximum yearly amount of €10k. There will be no investment caps for accredited private investors and institutional investors.
This is just the latest example of Lendix’s appetite for aggressive expansion. The company acquired Finsquare in April as a means of breaking into the short-term SME lending space. Olivier Goy, founder and president of Lendix, offered comment on the CNMV authorisation:
“We’re delighted that Lendix is authorized to operate as a crowdlending marketplace under the new regulated environment in Spain. For Lendix, working in a clear regulatory environment is paramount and we are even more honored, as an international platform, to be allowed to operate in Spain.”
“Spain is a high potential market with a network of companies that benefit from the rebound in the economy. Crowdlending as a new source of funding for SMEs, has the ability to contribute further to this dynamic. Thanks to the green light from the Spanish regulator, Lendix is now in position to put in motion its launch plan with the creation of a Spanish entity and the recruitment of a local team.”
