Alternative lending platform iwoca has closed a £21m Series C fundraise, led by Prime Ventures, with participation from existing investors Acton Capital Partners, CommerzVentures, Global Founders Capital and Redline Capital. The money will be used to further build out iwoca’s proprietary technology and data platform, as well as to scale its UK and European operations and to launch new partnerships.
Iwoca closed a $20m Series B funding round led by Acton Capital Partners in July 2015. Sake Bosch, managing partner at Prime Ventures, will be joining iwoca’s board as a non-executive director as part of the Series C investment.
“Iwoca has developed a remarkably sophisticated approach to lending,” said Bosch. “Its technology platform and strong European reach is redefining small business finance. We invest in growing firms with the objective of making leaders out of them. iwoca has tremendous potential to overtake traditional banking models and scale up to become the European market leader.”
Iwoca has also clinched a £25m secured debt facility from a syndicate of investors led by Shawbrook Bank. The £25m increases iwoca’s debt facilities to £40m. An opportunistic fundraiser, iwoca turned to P2P bond platform UK Bond Network to raise £1m in August of last year.
Iwoca has lent over £150m across 18,000 transactions since launching in 2012, funding 7,000 businesses across the UK, Poland, Spain and Germany along the way.
“It’s been an incredible journey over the last five years but we are still at the very beginning. We’ve already been able to support 7,000 small businesses but we aim to finance at least a million customers over next decade,” said Christoph Rieche (pictured above), co-founder and CEO of iwoca.“This investment gives us the firepower we need to achieve our mission.”
