| iwoca | |
| Type: | Private company |
| Industry: | Financial services |
| Location City: | London |
| Location Country: | United Kingdom |
| Area Served: | United Kingdom |
| Products: | Business loans, line of credit |
iwoca Ltd. is a British online credit financing company based in London. It offers credit facilities to small businesses trading in the UK and Germany via an automated lending platform.
iwoca provides credit lines of up to £200,000 and business loans of up to £500,000. It uses various machine learning models to automatically assess businesses based on data taken directly from Xero, eBay, Amazon, PayPal, Sage Pay, business bank accounts and other online and offline platforms. This follows a similar model to the one used by Kabbage in the United States.[1]
The company was founded by Christoph Rieche and James Dear in October 2011 and started trading in March 2012. Initially they focused on custom-built loans to small businesses, who usually struggled with access to finance from big banks. To start with, these were exclusively e-commerce businesses, but in April 2014, iwoca began lending to all types of small businesses. By July 2015, it was reported to have seen 250% year-on-year growth in issuance.[2]
It has also integrated its credit API with Tide bank. A 3% monthly interest rate and maximum loan term of 12 months are typical.[3]
The company was founded by Christoph Rieche who became the CEO and James Dear who became the CTO in October 2011. The company started trading in March 2012. iwoca was funded by private investors and venture capitalists.
In January 2014, it announced that it had raised £5 million in investment from Global Founders Capital and Redline Capital Management, to be used for UK and European expansion.[4]
In July 2015, it announced that it had raised $20 million equity from investors including CommerzVentures and venture capital firm Acton Capital Partners in its Series B round.[5]
iwoca entered the German market in 2015, and established itself as one of the largest Fintech small business lenders – paying out the highest number of loans to small businesses in the country.[6]
In 2018, iwoca doubled its revenues to £48 million and reached profitability.[7]
In February 2019, the company raised $194 million through a Series D funding round[8] and has received £10 million from the Capability and Innovations Fund[9] Banking Competition Remedies grant. As part of this grant, iwoca promised to fulfil six commitments[10] including co-developing new products with Xero and opening offices outside of London. On top of this, iwoca promised to match the £10 million grant with £13 million of its own funds.
As of October 2019, iwoca had lent more than £1 billion to over 30,000 businesses since inception and made funding available to over 50,000 across a range of industries through its platform in the UK and Germany and has raised £350 million in equity and debt finance.[11] Its platform and successes were referenced by Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney in a speech about technology and small business lending at the Lord Mayor's Banquet for Bankers and Merchants of the City of London.[12]
In January 2020, iwoca announced that it was opening a new office in Leeds, creating 100 new jobs in Yorkshire by 2023.[13]