SME lender iwoca has raised a new £200 million funding line from Baclays Bank and Värde Partners after reaching £2.5bn in finance lent.
In January this year, iwoca secured an increase and extension to its existing funding line, with long-standing partner Pollen Street Capital - from £125 million to £170 million - as demand for SME finance soared. With the new £200 million funding line from Barclays and Värde, this now takes the total debt commitments to over £850 million.
Iwoca is benefiting from a recessionary trend which has increased demand for financing from SMEs at a time when the major banks are raising their credit risk premiums and reducing their appetite for funding small businesses
Iwoca's embedded lending technology enables businesses to access loans directly through a range of platforms such as accountancy software apps and digital neo-banks. The lender also offers an omni-channel B2B payment system, iwocaPay, and a Revenue-Based Loan, which it launched with eBay in 2022, where repayments are a percentage of a business’s monthly sales.
Across the UK and Germany, the firm has lent over £2.5bn since its launch in 2012 across more than 120,000 business loans. As of Q3 2023, the lender is on track to end the year having doubled the number of small business loans it has funded when compared to 2021.
Christoph Rieche, iwoca CEO and co-founder, says: “We started iwoca after the financial crisis to offer SMEs the support that was so badly needed during uncertain times. Now, over 10 years later, we are fully tested and have proven that we can be there for SMEs when they need us the most. With this new funding, we’re in an even better position to help smaller businesses in the UK and Germany at a time of economic uncertainty.”