By Roger Baird on Thursday 24 January 2019
The venture capital firm said the cash will boost iwoca’s operations across the UK, Germany and Poland.
Venture capital firm Augmentum Fintech said it has invested £7.5m in iwoca to boost growth at the small business lender.
London-based iwoca lends up to £200,000 to small firms across theUK, Germany and Poland and has funded more than 25,000 businesses since it was launched seven years ago.
The fintech platform is led by co-founder and chief executive Christoph Rieche, a former Goldman Sachs vice president, and added Barclays and HSBC to its Open Banking connections last December.
Augmentum said the new cash for iwoca would “fund balance sheet expansion and accelerate growth”.
Augmentum co-founder and principal of Capital Tim Levene said: “While there are many companies attempting to address small and medium sized enterprise lending, few have a credit product as advanced as iwoca. We believe their industry-leading analytics and technology set them apart from other lenders and give them a competitive advantage others will find hard to replicate.”
Augmentum, which specialises in funding digital financial start-ups, raised £94m when it debuted on the London Stock Exchange last March, and is one of the most active investors in UK fintech.
Last week it led a fundraising, also for £7.5m, for online will-writing firm Farewill, which also included other high profile backers such as Kindred Capital, dmg ventures, owned by the Daily Mail’s DMGT, and SAATCHiNVEST, set up by advertising gurus Charles and Maurice Saatchi.
The venture capital business also has stakes in range of high-profile digital businesses such as Zopa, Seedrs,Interactive Investors and Monese.
Analysts at investment bank Liberum estimate that Augmentum has "about £32.5m" of cash for investment after the iwoca transaction.
