FinTech iwoca extends funding line to £170m

FinTechInvestment

London FinTech iwoca achieved net profitability in Q4 2022 and has extended its funding pipeline to £170m.

Founded in 2011, the small business lender has seen an increase in demand for working capital as SMEs need additional funding due to higher costs and slower customer repayments.

The total number of customers funded across the UK and Germany – including all products and repeat customers – grew by over 50% in 2022 compared to 2021. iwoca funded 15,429 businesses in 2022, an increase of 54% from 2021.

To meet this growing demand, iwoca has increased its funding line from £125m to £170m with long-standing partner Pollen Street Capital. Other financing lines are also increased with existing lenders.

Last year iwoca also more than doubled the maximum size of the Flexi-Loan, one of its core lending products, from £200,000 to £500,000 to meet the growing demand from medium-sized businesses.

“Companies up and down the country are in need of immediate working capital to deal with the increased pressure on their cash flow,” said Christoph Rieche, CEO.

“My co-founder [James Dear] and I started iwoca to fill this exact gap, and we’re proud to step up and support thousands of small businesses every month. Our biggest constraint now is raising the finances quickly enough to meet the huge levels of demand we’re seeing.”

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iwoca now reaches almost 3 million businesses across the UK and Germany through its embedded lending technology, which allows businesses to access loans directly through a range of platforms such as accounting software apps and digital new banks.

In addition to the Flexi loan, the lender offers an omni-channel B2B payment solution – iwocaPay, and an income-based loan, which it also launched in partnership with eBay in 2022, where the repayments are a percentage of a company’s monthly sales.

Michael Katramados, partner at Pollen Street, said: “We are thrilled to extend and expand our partnership with iwoca to help provide much-needed access to capital to small businesses across the UK and Germany.

“This new facility builds on our existing relationship with iwoca, which began in 2016, and demonstrates our commitment to investments that deliver positive impact, in this case the ability to support small businesses through a high-quality lending partner.”

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