Iwoca, a London-based lender for SMEs, has announced the closure of a £21m Series C funding round led by Prime Ventures.
The round, which also drew support from existing investors Acton Capital Partners, CommerzVentures, Global Founders Capital and Redline Capital, brings Iwoca’s total funding raised to £38m.
According to a company statement, Iwoca will use the funds to continue developing its proprietary data platform, expand in the UK and Europe and secure new partnerships.
Christoph Rieche, co-founder and CEO of Iwoca, said: “It’s been an incredible journey over the last five years but we are still at the very beginning. We’ve already been able to support 7,000
small businesses but we aim to finance at least a million customers over next decade. This investment gives us the firepower we need to achieve our mission.
“We are very excited to welcome Prime Ventures to our world-class investor group and embark on our next phase of growth. Given that Iwoca is both a technology company and a finance provider, we are very fortunate to have an investor base with experience that covers both areas,” he continued.
As part of the funding agreement, Sake Bosh, founder and managing partner at Prime Ventures, will be joining Iwoca’s board as a non-executive director.
Commenting on his new role and his decision to invest in the company, Bosh said: “Iwoca has developed a remarkably sophisticated approach to lending. Its technology platform and strong European reach is redefining small business finance. We invest in growing firms with the objective of making leaders out of them. Iwoca has tremendous potential to overtake traditional banking models and scale up to become the European market leader.”
Iwoca claims to have lent more than £150m across 18,000 different transactions and supported 7,000 businesses across the UK, Poland, Spain and Germany since it launched four years ago.