Sweden-based mobile lending platform Bynk has secured €48m ($54.4m) in funding from investors including media company Schibsted and financial services firm LMK Industri, EU Startups reported on Tuesday.
Founded in 2016, Bynk has created a mobile app that enables users to request loans of up to roughly $32,000, borrowing the money over a typical period of three to 12 years.
Once approved, the user can change the monthly fee on the loan, pause the payment or apply to extend the loan in the case of an emergency, directly through the app.
Schibsted has increased its stake in Bynk to 32% in the round, which valued the company at approximately $215m. It had originally joined LMK Industri’s venture capital arm, LMK Ventures, as well as angel investors Thomas Hjelm and Göran Espelund to supply $3.8m of seed capital for Bynk in 2016.
Bynk added $7.1m in a mid-2017 round featuring LMK, Schibsted and undisclosed new investors, before Schibsted subsidiary Schibsted Growth contributed to an $11.2m round in June 2018.
Raoul Grünthal, president and chief executive of Schibsted, said: “We saw early on Bynk’s potential, which it is now proving with full force, because there is clearly market demand for its product.
“It is precisely these companies that we want to invest in and participate in and develop through Schibsted.”