London listed fintech venture fund Augmentum has invested £7.5 million in small business lender iwoca.
Iwoca provides short-term loans of up to £200,000 to small and micro businesses across the UK, Germany and Poland. Since launching in 2012, the company has lent more than £600 million to over 25,000 European businesses.
Co-founded by former Goldman Sachs' executive Christoph Rieche and Deutsche Bank alumni James Dear,, the company has set its sights on financing over a million small businesses over the next decade as it extends its network across Europe.
Tim Levene of Augmentum Fintech, says: “Whilst there are many companies attempting to address SME lending, few have a credit product as advanced as iwoca. We believe their industry-leading analytics and technology set them apart from other lenders and give them a competitive advantage others will find hard to replicate. We are confident that iwoca will emerge as one of the winners in the SME space."
The funding is the second investment made by Augmentum over the past few days, coming hard on the heels of a £4 million endowment in Farewill Limited, the all-in-one financial and legal services platform for dealing with death.