UK-based digital lender MarketFinance secured £280m ($383m) in funding yesterday from investors including financial services firm Barclays Bank.
Growth capital firm Black River Ventures led the equity portion of the round, which included debt financing from an unnamed investment firm and bank Intesa Sanpaolo.
Founded in 2011 as MarketInvoice, MarketFinance has built an online platform that enables small businesses to sell unsettled invoices to get loans. It has been appointed an accredited lender in the Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS), a UK government initiative that helps local enterprises recover from the covid-19 pandemic.
Anil Stocker, chief executive of MarketFinance, said: “We aim to quickly lend [$342m] to businesses around the UK. We anticipate demand for RLS to come from companies that will need capital to scale operations ahead of the full reopening of the economy.
“Manufacturers, wholesalers, public services businesses and a range of others will need the funds to ramp up supplies and build pipelines as business returns to normal.”
Barclays had joined fellow financial services group Santander’s InnoVentures unit (now spun off as venture capital firm Mouro Capital) to co-lead a $72m series B round for the company in early 2019 featuring Northzone and Viola Credit, the latter supplying $38.8m of the total in the form of debt financing.
MarketFinance had previously secured $9.6m in a 2016 round led by MCI Capital’s MCI.TechVentures Fund and backed by Northzone.
Northzone had already participated in a $9.4m round for MarketFinance the previous year tougher with Paul Forster’s family office, both investors having also contributed to a $7.8m round in 2014.
