InvoiceBid has rebranded as Timelio

AltFi catches up with newly rebranded Timelio co-founder Charlotte Petris to find out more about platform’s new developments.

Following on from our last AltFi Down Under series, we continue to monitor as the Australian peer-to-peer lending market develops. After a series of interesting news items, such as RateSetter Australia’s publication of its loan book, another platform has today announced several developments, including a new name.

I am referring to InvoiceBid, an invoice trading platform launched in 2014, which enables businesses to raise short-term finance by selling their unpaid invoices directly to a net-work of investors. AltFi had the chance to interview co-founder Charlotte Petris,

The first major change is the new name. InvoiceBid has rebranded to Timelio, to better reflect the company’s benefit of "money today, growth tomorrow”. The company has also announced today the closure of a $500k seed round to fund its expansion. The capital raise has been crowdfunded not only by high net worth investors and family offices, but also by some of Timelio’s customers, demonstrating the confidence that they have in the company’s future success. According to Charlotte, the funds will be employed to expand the sales and technical teams and to enhance the platform’s technology, so that accessing finance will be much easier for Australasian businesses. Charlotte commented:

“One of the main benefits of the Timelio marketplace is that business, who wish to sell their invoices maintain control by deciding when they want to sell an invoice and can set what finance costs they are willing to incur. Then the network of investors on the Timelio platform bid on the invoices they wish to finance at the marketplace rate.”

In addition to the funds raised, Timelio has welcomed Glenn Smith, Director of StartupAUS and CEO of Spotjobs, as its new Chairman. Glenn voiced his excitement:

“There is a significant global market opportunity for peer-to-peer invoice financing. Timelio have achieved proof of concept with a differentiated customer centric platform and highly engaged customers. I am passionate about driving global growth opportunities for businesses through leveraging technology and Timelo is delivering on that objective.”

These announcements follow on from the platform’s achievement of several recent growth milestones, including $3.5 million in invoices traded since launching and engagement with key stakeholders, such as accountants and financial advisers, whose clients benefit from its services.

Timelio is one of the main players in the Australian peer-to-peer invoice finance market, while the broader Australian alternative finance space features RateSetter Australia, specializing in consumer loans, ThinCats Australia, focused on SME loans, Loan Ranger, a short-term consumer lender that currently operates a direct lending rather than marketplace lending model, and many more.

According to Altfi Data, the size of the opportunity in the Australian market is vast, with approximately AU$100bn of consumer debt outstanding split roughly 40:60 between personal loans and credit card debt. However, the Australian alternative finance industry is right at the start of its journey, seemingly poised for significant growth over the next couple of years.