Acton and CommerzVentures lead $20m series-B for Iwoca

Existing backers including Redline Capital also took part in the round, which will finance Iwoca’s product development and international growth strategy. The company has ramped up its European expansion activity in the past year, opening its platform to Spanish companies in December 2014 and German companies in April 2015.

Iwoca stated it will be able to issue an additional $150m of loans as a result of the deal.

The UK fintech space has seen considerable venture backing in recent months. In H1 alone, Sapphire Ventures took part in an $18m series-C for Currency Cloud, Frog Capital led a $20m series-B funding round for Azimo, Technology Crossover Ventures led a $100m series-B for WorldRemit and Andreessen Horowitz led a $58m series-C for Transferwise.

Previous funding
Iwoca first received institutional backing in January 2013, when Talis Capital joined Beyond Digital in a £2m round for the company. The following year, Global Founders and Redline took part in a £5m round for the business, alongside Beyond Digital and Talis. 

Company
Founded in 2012, London-headquartered Iwoca is an online provider of working capital loans of up to $150,000 to small and medium-sized enterprises. Its platform calculates borrowers’ risk profiles by assessing data from high-street banks and online e-commerce platforms including Amazon, eBay, PayPal and Sage Pay.

The business has recently announced its E-Credit Line product in partnership with Alibaba, which allows companies to source products from Chinese suppliers without paying international transfer fees.

Iwoca stated it has achieved 250% growth in the year to June 2015. It has a headcount of 80 including its operations in Germany, Spain and Portugal. 

People
Acton managing partner Frank Seehaus will take a seat on the board at Iwoca. Alastair Cookson is a partner at Redline. Patrick Meisberger is managing director at CommerzVentures. Christoph Rieche is co-founder and CEO of Iwoca.

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• Topics
• Expansion
• UK / Ireland
• Financials
• United Kingdom