Company:iwoca
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Type of site | Financial services |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Privately Held |
| Created by |
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| Website | iwoca |
| Registration | Required |
| Launched | 5 October 2011 |
| Current status | Active |
iwoca Ltd. (/ɪˈwɒkə/) is an online Fintech company based in London. It offers credit facilities to small businesses trading in the UK and Germany via an automated lending platform. CEO Christoph Rieche and CTO James Dear founded iwoca in October 2011 and the company started trading in March 2012. They aimed to offer custom-built loans to small businesses, who usually struggled with fair access to finance from big banks. To start with, these were exclusively e-commerce businesses, but in April 2014, iwoca began lending to all types of small businesses. By July 2015, it was reported to have seen 250% year-on-year growth in issuance.[2]
iwoca provides credit lines of up to £200,000 and business loans of up to £500,000. It uses various machine learning models to automatically assess businesses based on data taken directly from Xero, eBay, Amazon, PayPal, Sage Pay, business bank accounts and other online and offline platforms.[1] This follows a similar model to the one used by Kabbage in the United States .[3] It's also integrated its credit API with the Tide bank.[4] A 3% monthly interest rate and maximum loan term of 12 months are typical.[5]
In 2018, iwoca doubled its revenues to £48 million and reached profitability.[6]
As of October 2019, iwoca had funded more than £1 billion to over 30,000 businesses[7] since inception and made funding available to over 50,000 across a range of industries through its platform in the UK and Germany and has raised £350 million in equity and debt finance. Its platform and successes were referenced by Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney in a speech about technology and small business lending at the Lord Mayor's Banquet for Bankers and Merchants of the City of London.[8]
History
iwoca is funded by private investors and venture capitalists.[1]
In January 2014, it announced that it had raised £5 million in investment from Global Founders Capital and Redline Capital Management, to be used for UK and European expansion.[9]
In July 2015, it announced that it had raised $20 million equity from investors including CommerzVentures and venture capital firm Acton Capital Partners in its Series B round.[10]
iwoca entered the German market in 2015, and has since established itself as one of the largest Fintech small business lenders – paying out the highest number of loans to small businesses in the country.[11]
In February 2019, the company raised $194 million through a Series D funding round[12] and has received £10 million from the Capability and Innovations Fund[13] Banking Competition Remedies grant. As part of this grant, iwoca promised to fulfil six commitments[14] including co-developing new products with Xero and opening offices outside of London. On top of this, iwoca promised to match the £10 million grant with £13 million of its own funds.
In January 2020, iwoca announced that it was opening a new office in Leeds, creating 100 new jobs in Yorkshire by 2023.[15]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Amy, Wilson (September 11, 2012), "Iwoca's capital way to assist eBay traders", The Daily Telegraph, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/businessclub/9534160/Iwocas-capital-way-to-assist-eBay-traders.html, retrieved March 15, 2019
- ↑ "London fintech startup iwoca just got $20 million from German investors, 30 July 2015. Retrieved on 3 August 2015.
- ↑ Prosser, David (January 14, 2014). "Iwoca And Ezbob Battle It Out For Britain's Online Traders". Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidprosser/2014/01/14/iwoca-and-ezbob-battle-it-out-for-britains-online-traders/.
- ↑ Peter, Lee (March 16, 2018), "Iwoca's growth shows SME hunger for credit as banks withdraw", euromoney.com, https://www.euromoney.com/article/b17c1cfty3pffn/iwocas-growth-shows-sme-hunger-for-credit-as-banks-withdraw, retrieved March 15, 2019
- ↑ "iwoca UK homepage". iwoca. http://www.iwoca.co.uk.
- ↑ "iwoca announced £1bn milestone on funding SMEs" (in en-GB). 2019-11-05. https://www.uktech.news/news/iwoca-issues-1-billion-in-funding-to-over-30%2C000-small-businesses-20191104.
- ↑ "iwoca issues £1 billion in funding" (in en). https://www.iwoca.co.uk/insights/iwoca-one-billion/.
- ↑ "Speech by Mark Carney at the Lord Mayor's Banquet for Bankers and Merchants of the City of London at the Mansion House, London". https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/speech/2019/enable-empower-ensure-a-new-finance-for-the-new-economy-speech-by-mark-carney.
- ↑ Catherine Shu. "E-Commerce Business Lender iwoca Raises $8.2M To Expand In The UK And Europe | Techcrunch". Techcrunch.com. https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/09/e-commerce-business-lender-iwoca-raises-8-2m-to-expand-in-the-uk-and-europe/.
- ↑ "iwoca raises $20 million to accelerate growth" , 30 July 2015. Retrieved on 3 August 2015.
- ↑ "04/07/19: Deutsche Bank, Basel IV, Iwoca, October" (in de-DE). https://finanz-szene.de/news/04-07-19-deutsche-bank-basel-iv-iwoca-october/.
- ↑ PYMNTS (2019-02-19). "SMB Lender iwoca Raises $194M" (in en-US). https://www.pymnts.com/news/b2b-payments/2019/alternative-small-business-lending-investment/.
- ↑ "Capability and Innovation Fund – BCR". https://bcr-ltd.com/cif/.
- ↑ "Public Commitments – BCR". https://bcr-ltd.com/public-commitments/.
- ↑ "Major European fintech business iwoca to create up to 100 jobs by opening Leeds office" (in en). https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/business/major-european-fintech-business-iwoca-to-create-up-to-100-jobs-by-opening-leeds-office-1-10160848.
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