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Trade Ledger, which provides a Lending-as-a-Service (LaaS) platform, has secured £13.5 million in capital through a Series A round that was led by Point72 Ventures. Foundation Capital, Court Lorenzini, and Hambro Perks also took part in the round.
Trade Ledger aims to assist lenders with offering credit to SMEs by showing them the details they require to make more informed decisions. The company consolidates or aggregates all the data that lenders require during the client lifecycle, analyzes that data, and then automates key or routine business processes.
Trade Ledger notes that lenders are able to act faster with significantly less risk and can serve more clients while earning more profit. They’re also able to move into new services like embedded finance, which includes providing loans as part of the payment journey on websites marketing products to various businesses.
In the 4 years since it was launched, Trade Ledger has managed to work with global and local banks and alternative finance providers as clients, while the startup’s revenues increased as much as 12x last year, Trade Ledger claims.
This latest investment round was carried out so that the company would be able to make new hires which will join its sales, marketing and customer delivery teams.
Martin McCann, CEO at Trade Ledger, stated:
“This new investment will enable us to triple our customer base during 2021. Adoption of our technology is critical for the post-pandemic recapitalization of the economy and we are driving growth as fast as our capital allows, to be able to support this critical economic need, particularly for SMEs.”
McCann had noted in June 2020:
“In the realm of business lending, the pandemic provided a massive test to traditional lenders, most of whom failed it. It shone a light on years of underinvestment in systems and processes that were built for a time of branch- and paper-based banking and could not cope with the spike in demand, leaving thousands of businesses without cash.”
He had also mentioned that “in the short term, we can expect customers who were let down in their time of need to look for new banking providers.” However, over the medium term, we should be expecting new entrants into the market and major investments in new systems now that it has become apparent that lending infrastructure requires an upgrade to meet the changing demands of a digital economy.
According to a report last year by Deloitte, the adversity of the pandemic may lead to an opportunity for Fintechs that tend to be more agile and creative as they seek to survive.
Last year, it was reported that many online lenders had quickly moved to allow borrowers to skip a payment or two recognizing the unique challenges of the crisis. Others were providing new features and services to cater to individuals and SMEs. The report from Deloitte highlighted multiple empirical examples of what Fintechs are doing during the time of heightened duress.
In the UK, Trade Ledger and several others had formed a business-lending taskforce to provide a turnkey origination and underwriting platform that allows banks, alternative lenders, and private debt lenders to virtually and digitally deploy funds to businesses during the COVID-19 outbreak.
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