- Equity funding round of £26 million led by Barclays and fintech fund Santander InnoVentures
- New invest or Viola Credit to provide the MarketInvoice platform with a debt facility of £30m to support business loan solution
- Funding to expand UK market presence and launch fintech-bank partnerships
21st January 2019, London; Fintech business lender MarketInvoice today announced it has raised £26m in new equity funding. This Series-B funding round was led by Barclays and fintech fund Santander InnoVentures with significant participation from European venture fund Northzone, an existing investor in the company. Technology credit fund Viola Credit, who also participated in the equity round, will provide a debt facility of up to £30m to help scale the MarketInvoice business loans solution, that sits alongside their core invoice finance solutions.
Since 2011, MarketInvoice has funded invoices and business loans to UK companies worth more than £2 billion, making them Europe’s largest online invoice finance platform. MarketInvoice has supported thousands of companies across the UK, funding over 170,000 invoices and supporting over 15,000 UK jobs, by providing business finance to help them grow, expand operations and hire more people.
The funding will enable MarketInvoice to deepen strategic partnerships in the UK, grow the team and increase awareness of its business finance solutions. In addition, the company is planning to launch cross-border fintech-bank partnerships to support more businesses with access to their lending solutions.
Anil Stocker, Co-founder & CEO of MarketInvoice, commented: “This investment is perfectly timed for the company. The quality of investors we are bringing in through this funding round is a real testament to the whole team at MarketInvoice and the value we are building.
We’re excited to develop our finance solutions further and become the trusted funding partner for ambitious entrepreneurs. By collaborating with bank partners, we will be reaching many thousands of companies here in the UK and abroad to provide them with their business finance needs. We aim to invest in technology, data and strategic partnerships, to take MarketInvoice to the next level.”
Manuel Silva Martínez, Managing Partner and Head of Investments at Santander InnoVentures commented: “MarketInvoice is helping UK businesses access much needed funding to keep their businesses and ideas thriving in a very competitive market. We are pleased to be joining other financial institutions as shareholders to scale their solutions in the UK and abroad. We are very excited to join Anil and his exceptional team in building this vision together.”
Ian Rand, CEO of Barclays Business Bank, said: “Collaborating with fintech companies like MarketInvoice is an integral part of Barclays’ strategy for accelerating growth. This investment demonstrates our commitment to the partnership we announced last summer which offers hundreds of thousands of our SME clients access to even more innovative forms of finance, boosting cash flow and competition in the market.”
Ido Vigdor, partner at Viola Credit, commented “More than £6 billion has been funded through alternative finance lending in the UK and it has become an established mainstream component in the UK financial landscape. The awareness, adoption and impact of alternative finance options are increasing rapidly as platforms, such as MarketInvoice, are providing seamless, easy to use, financial services. We are excited to enter the UK market and partner with this exceptional company as it enters to it next phase of growth”.
Anil Stocker added: “Now more than ever, businesses need access to stable lines of funding as they navigate choppy political and economic conditions. Our invoice finance solutions are designed to bridge the gap in cash flow requirements and keep UK businesses growing and exporting.
We will use this new funding to invest in further risk automation and data models, scale-up our business loans solution, and grow our teams.”
About Barclays
Barclays is a transatlantic consumer and wholesale bank offering products and services across personal, corporate and investment banking, credit cards and wealth management, with a strong presence in our two home markets of the UK and the US.
With over 325 years of history and expertise in banking, Barclays operates in over 40 countries and employs approximately 80,000 people. Barclays moves, lends, invests and protects money for customers and clients worldwide.
Santander InnoVentures
Santander InnoVentures is Santander’s $200 million fintech venture fund. It is tasked to find and qualify prospective fintech businesses that will help Santander innovate with a purpose – either to transform the bank or serve customers better.
As an active investor, Santander InnoVentures provides capital, scale and expertise to help ambitious founders build and grow their fintech business internationally. The fund continues to invest in core areas of artificial intelligence, open banking and customer centric solutions. Since launching in 2014, the fund has invested in 22 portfolio companies and has been named as the most active bank-backed fintech corporate venture in the world by CB Insights. It has also been listed in CBC’s Top 25 VCs – the only CVC to be included. 70% of the fund’s portfolio companies are now in strategic engagements with Santander Group.
About Viola Credit
Viola Credit is a leading private credit fund offering multi-strategy credit products to growing companies. The fund provides cutting-edge, custom credit solutions to technology-focused companies, through several main investment strategies including Alternative Lending, Venture Lending, Mezzanine and Distressed Assets Financing. Since 2000, Viola Credit has successfully completed over 125 transactions and committed over $900 million.
The fund has backed some of the leading alternative-lending companies such as Behalf, Lendbuzz, Pagaya, and Obligo. Viola Credit is part of Viola group, Israel’s leading technology oriented investment group with over $2.8B assets under management.
About MarketInvoice
MarketInvoice is a business finance company with offices in London and Manchester. Our smart online platform and personal customer service, is helping businesses take charge of their cash flow – quickly and easily. Since 2011, MarketInvoice has funded invoices and business loans worth more than £2 billion to companies across the UK.
Businesses can choose from a range of working capital solutions, including invoice finance and business loans. MarketInvoice delivers fast, flexible funding to help companies do everything from pay suppliers and staff to launch new products and grow.
MarketInvoice’s main strategic ambition is to broaden its reach to be able to support a wider range of businesses, from start-ups to larger businesses looking to scale up. The company aims to help even more companies get paid faster by financing their invoices, so business owners can save time and focus on running their business.
MarketInvoice is backed by Barclays, Santander InnoVentures, European venture capital fund Northzone (invested in Klarna, iZettle and Trustpilot), private equity group MCI Capital (also invested in iZettle, Azimo and Gett) and Viola Credit.
