Slingshot, Shoe back Swishfund

Harriet Matthews
03 January 2020

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Netherlands-based venture capital firms Slingshot Ventures and Shoe Investments have led a €15m round for corporate loan provider Swishfund.

Swishfund plans to use the fresh capital to enable the complete automation of its business credit application service and to expand its client base. The Netherlands-based company also aims to expand to more European markets.

Unquote understands that the process took six months to complete. The venture capital firms provided financing in the form of a junior loan, plus a small amount of equity.

A source close to the situation told Unquote that this investment will finance the business until the end of 2020 and that it will seek fresh investment in H2 2020, with Deloitte as its adviser.

Slingshot is currently fundraising for Slingshot Entrepreneur Fund and Slingshot Institutional Fund, which have targets of €60m and €40m respectively. The VC announced the vehicles in December 2019 and plans to close both in H1 2020. The institutional fund will co-invest with investors on a 40:60 basis. The Entrepreneur Fund will be backed by entrepreneurs and will co-invest with the Institutional Fund on a 60:40 basis, deploying tickets of €500,000-10m.

Shoe Investments commits equity tickets of €2-10m for at least 35% of businesses with minimum revenues of €5m, specialising in e-commerce B2C and B2B companies. Shoe Investments co-founded Swishfund with its CEO, Bart Jan van Genderen.

Previous funding
In November 2018, Slingshot invested an undisclosed amount in an early-stage round for Swishfund.

Company
Swishfund provides an online portal for corporate loans that aims to provide capital to SMEs quickly. The company provides loans of three to six months and aims to inform applicants whether or not their loan has been granted within 24 hours, using an AI-backed algorithm to predict whether or not the loan can be repaid.

The company was founded in 2015 and has provided more than 6,000 loans since its inception. It provided €60m in credit to customers in 2019. The business is based in Amsterdam and employs 34 staff, according to LinkedIn.

People
Swishfund – Bart Jan van Genderen (CEO).