Two British fintech firms said on Monday they had raised more than £ 200million between them, adding to the hundreds of millions already invested in the sector so far this year.
Online small business lender iwoca has raised £ 150million in debt and equity financing, the company said on Monday. Separately, direct debit technology company GoCardless has raised $ 75million (£ 58million).
The Iwoca and GoCardless fundraisers are the latest in a series of significant UK fintech investments in 2019. Notable deals reached this year include:
Tim Levene, CEO of Augmentum Capital, who led the investment in iwoca, told Yahoo Finance UK that Britain “has clearly established itself as Europe’s fintech hub” and “will remain the global hub. of fintech “despite Brexit.
“The current uncertainty is clearly not helpful as it inevitably creates investment inertia which could have a short-term impact on the level of funding entering the sector,” he said. “However, the medium to long term prognosis for UK fintech remains strong and will be able to weather any short term pain Brexit will bring.”
Fundraising for Iwoca came from Augmentum Fintech (AUGM.L), with the participation of Dutch bank NIBC and existing investors. The deal includes a £ 20million equity investment in the company and £ 130million in debt. Iwoca declined to comment on his assessment in the round.
Iwoca provides loans of up to £ 250,000 to small businesses through its online platform. Founded in 2011, it has so far lent to 25,000 companies in the UK, Germany and Poland.
Co-founder and CEO Christoph Reiche said in a statement, “Iwoca continues to grow rapidly as small business bank lending has declined. This fundraising allows us to empower many more small businesses.
GoCardless, which allows online businesses to accept direct debits, has raised $ 75million (£ 58million) from investors Google Ventures, Adams Street Partners and Salesforce Ventures, as well as returning investors Notion Capital, Balderton Capital, Passion Capital and Accel.
GoCardless said in a statement that it plans to use the funding to expand into Asia and North America. CEO Hiroki Takeuchi said in a statement: “A global network of bank debit is an absolute necessity to enable businesses to easily collect recurring payments anywhere, in any currency.”
Earlier this month, a report from Innovate Finance, the UK’s trade body for fintech, found that a record $ 3.3 billion (£ 2.5 billion) had been invested in British fintech in 2018, up 18% from the previous year. A separate study from Accenture put the figure at $ 3.9 billion and said the UK accounted for 56% of all fintech investments in Europe last year.
The deals highlighted above amount to $ 812m (£ 629m) invested in UK fintech in less than two months in 2019. If funding continues at the same pace, UK fintech would be in on track to crush the 2018 total and raise $ 4.8bn (£ 3.7bn). ). Seasonal downturns suggest this is unlikely, but it is still a positive indicator.
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Oscar Williams-Grut covers banking, fintech and finance for Yahoo Finance UK. Follow him on Twitter at @OscarWGrut.
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