British FinTech, Lemon, which specialises in SaaS finance for SMB’s has announced a strategic partnership with WiserFunding, a leader in alternative data for credit risk assessment.
Through this partnership, Lemon will integrate WiserFunding’s advanced data analytics into its platform, enabling the pre-screening of prospective borrowers. Traditionally, banks have taken up to six weeks to make any credit decision, but with the combined capabilities of Lemon and WiserFunding, this process can now be completed within just 24 hours. This collaboration is set to revolutionise the way SMBs access better payment terms for SaaS contacts and have the ability to unlock pricing discounts. Lemon dramatically reduces the time it takes to reach a lending decision.
By leveraging alternative data through WiserFunding’s platform, Lemon can gain instant insights into borrowers, enabling more accurate and efficient credit underwriting, specifically for SaaS deals. This approach is especially beneficial for SMBs, which often face challenges in securing any form of credit from traditional providers at the same rate as larger businesses. This disparity has led to a significant SME funding gap of £22 billion in the UK alone, according to research conducted by the Bank of England in 2019.
Moving forward, Lemon will empower more SaaS companies to give their SMB customers access to tailored SaaS financing that not only meet their specific needs, but also offers substantial cost savings. The decision to partner with WiserFunding underscores the company’s commitment to leveraging the latest and most relevant technological solutions to develop new and modern financial products that are perfectly aligned with today’s challenges. With the support of this partnership, Lemon’s lending solution is now poised for more rapid growth.
Speaking on the new partnership, Matt Bird, CEO of Lemon, commented: “Partnering with WiserFunding marks a significant step forward for Lemon. They provide the perfect solution for our needs, backed by a highly engaged team and an intuitive, streamlined product with exceptional features. This exciting collaboration equips Lemon with the high-quality data essential for achieving our goals and will deliver tangible benefits to our users, enhancing their ability to unlock SaaS savings and access tailored, cost-saving credit.”
Commenting on the new deal, Rory McMahon, Head of Growth at WiserFunding said: “WiserFunding empowers companies to leverage alternative data, enabling more accurate and efficient credit underwriting. For Lemon, this means gaining instant insights into borrowers and pre-screening them before a bank even makes a lending decision. Together, our new approach will help to reduce the resources required by lenders and allow Lemon to reach a lending decision much faster. It’s a huge step forward to helping to unlock much-needed financing into SMBs and the use-case of it being built specifically for SaaS is really powerful. We’re also really excited to be able to offer Lemon to our clients too, they really are solving a big problem for technology companies with SaaS revenue”
Lemon’s announcement follows a pre-seed funding announcement of £500k earlier this year, which was led by SFC Capital, recognised as the UK’s most active early-stage VC, alongside Pitchdrive and SyndicateRoom. The round was bolstered by angel investors including Nick Dodd, former Partner of Debt Advisory at KPMG, and Kimberley Waldron, a co-founder of FinTech communications agency SkyParlour, and super-angel, Paddy MccGuire. The company is now pushing ahead towards its goal of helping SMBs to discover, finance and control their spending on SaaS.