UK FinTech kennek raises $4.5M to power alternative lenders

By Gloria Methri

London-based FinTech firm kennek has raised a $4.5 million pre-seed funding round led by Dutch Founders Fund, ffVC and Plug and Play Ventures.

The company has developed an end-to-end operating system designed to streamline operations for lenders, credit investors, businesses and services in the alternative credit sector.

kennek was founded in 2021 to solve two major pain points: operational scalability for lenders and investors; and more efficient financing of credits.

In its first year of trading, kennek has already launched a plug-and-play operating system that caters to a wide range of lenders and credit products. The company’s UK operations have secured commercial gains with clients operating in SME lending, R&D credit and commercial property.

The ultimate goal of kennek is to make scalable and robust lending infrastructure available to everyone to facilitate more funding to flow to the real economy.

FinTech works with existing lenders and banks, but also with new lenders that can be launched effectively with its complete lender-in-a-box. As such, kennek plays the role of lender-incubator offering credit expertise, the entire operating system and access to institutional funding. Companies also use kennek to offer embedded credit and to manage receivables financing.

Laurens Groenendijk from the Dutch Founders Fund said: “De Pauw, Lancksweert and Parsons bring the diverse and necessary experience together to address lending inefficiencies. The uniquely designed product and lending rails that kennek is creating will make it much easier for lenders worldwide to launch, operate and scale, he added.

Xavier De Pauw, co-founder and CEO of kennek added, “Our aim is to create a single point of truth for all stakeholders in the lending value chain. This will help drive capital from institutional investors to the real economy, such as SMEs, real estate developers and corporates.”