European banks add £135m to business funding platform

MarketInvoice’s smart online platform enables businesses to secure business loans and invoice finance. These working capital solutions are funded by a variety of sources in addition to institutional investors, including the British Business Bank, UK local authorities, global family offices and sophisticated and HNW investors. 

Overall, sums advanced to UK businesses from institutional investors via MarketInvoice have increased more than 3-fold since 2014 from £119.4m to £445.7m in 2017. Cumulative funding from institutions stands at £1.1b which represents a half (52.3%) of the total funds advanced to UK businesses.

Banco BNI Europa’s initial investment of £28.3m in 2016 was followed up with an additional £45m in May 2017. Today, that capital deployment has doubled by adding a further £90m to the platform.

Pedro Coelho, Executive Chairman of Banco BNI Europa commented:

“Our experience of working with MarketInvoice since 2016 has been exceptional. Our values are aligned on delivering innovative, quick and easy-to-use products that help growing businesses. Their ability to deliver fast and timely funding means that our investment is being well utilised. Furthermore, with the onset of Open Banking in the UK, we expect they will get funding to companies faster, who will in turn grow, hire more people and ultimately generate economic growth.”

Varengold Bank AG added £45m in September 2017 and have, today, added a further £45m to support UK businesses funding needs.

Lukas Diehl, EVP Marketplace Banking, of Varengold Bank AG commented:

“The MarketInvoice model has proven itself to be a dynamic marketplace servicing a vast swathe of businesses. Increasing our investment was a straight forward decision, in keeping with our ambition to become the bank of choice for the marketplace lending industry. In the year ahead, as Brexit looms, there is significant upside for MarketInvoice in all scenarios. The company is well placed to serve UK businesses providing export goods and services or those firms that are vary of the trading environment. Cashflow will be central to all businesses and MarketInvoice is well placed to service their funding needs.”

Last week, MarketInvoice reached the milestone of funding £2b worth of invoices and business loans to UK companies. Launched in 2011, the company has provided business finance solutions to thousands of businesses across the UK who employ more than 19,000 people. During this time over 90,000 invoices have been funded to 93 countries.

Anil Stocker, CEO and Co-founder of MarketInvoice commented:

“The volume and value of invoices we’re funding is higher than ever before. This is all down to businesses choosing diversity in funding source. Our growing institutional investor base on the platform has enabled us to support a broader pool of businesses. The invoice finance and asset-based lending sector is providing more finance to UK businesses than ever before. Funding volumes are up 13% year on year and stand at just over £22 billion. This is the highest figure ever.”