Fintech business lender MarketInvoice announced it has raised £26mn 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 £30mn 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 £2bn, 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.
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, said: “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, said: “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, added: “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”.
“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,” Stocker added.