Industry News

Online SME lender Capify secures $125 million credit facility from Pollen Street Capital

Leading online SME lender Capify has today secured a $125 million credit facility from Pollen Street Capital (“Pollen Street”), an alternative asset manager dedicated to investing within financial and business services.

The new facility will support the lender’s ambitious future growth plans and provide working capital to thousands of SMEs over the coming years.

Founded initially in the United States in 2002, Capify was one of the world’s first online alternative financing companies for SMEs. It was launched in the UK and Australia in 2008, against the backdrop of the global financial crisis, when many small and medium-sized businesses were struggling to access vital funding from banks. Last year it was named the UK Credit Awards SME Lender of the Year (up to £1m).

“We are extremely excited about our future relationship with Pollen Street, a capital provider with a proven track record of partnering with impactful and innovative businesses. This deal represents another significant milestone for Capify and underlines the strength of our business model in providing fast, flexible and responsible support to SMEs”, said David Goldin, Founder and CEO of Capify.

“We are absolutely delighted to secure this financing deal with Pollen Street” added John Rozenbroek, CFO/COO at Capify. “The credit facility will enable us to continue on our growth trajectory while offering even more attractive and innovative solutions to the growing number of small businesses in need of funding. We are passionate about the vital role SMEs play in the success of any economy . This new multi-year credit facility allows us to provide much-needed access to capital for SMEs to help them manage and prosper, whilst also enabling us to deliver on our own growth plans”.

“With continued investment in our platforms and customer experience, we will streamline our processes and provide even faster decisions to brokers and SMEs,” said Rozenbroek. “These enhancements underline our commitment to leveraging technology to meet the fast-evolving needs of small businesses, ensuring they have quick access to capital and can seize growth opportunities more effectively.”

“We are impressed by Capify’s seasoned management team and their enduring presence in the market. Since its inception in 2008, Capify has been at the forefront of online SME lending in both the UK and Australia, consistently demonstrating its commitment to the sector. Capify successfully addresses the needs of the underserved market segment, resulting from a chronic undersupply of bank financing, and promotes both financial inclusion as well as regional economic growth, aligning closely to Pollen Street Capital’s ESG framework. We are delighted to partner with Capify and support their ongoing growth” added Ethan Saggu, Investment Director at Pollen Street Capital.

About Capify

Capify is an online lender that provides flexible financing solutions to SMEs seeking working capital to sustain or grow their business. Originally started in the US over twenty years ago, the fintech businesses have been serving the SME market in the UK and Australia for over 15 years. In that time, it has provided finance to thousands of businesses, ensuring the vibrant and vital SME community can meet the challenges of today and the opportunities of tomorrow.

For more details about Capify, visit:
http://www.capify.co.uk
http://www.capify.com.au

About Pollen Street Capital

Pollen Street is a purpose led and high performing private capital asset manager. Established in 2013, the firm has built deep capability across the financial and business services sector aligned with mega-trends shaping the future of the industry. Pollen Street manages over £4.2bn AUM across private equity and credit strategies on behalf of investors including leading public and corporate pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and foundations, asset managers, banks, and family offices from around the world. Pollen Street has a team of over 80 professionals with offices in London and the US.

For more information, visit: www.pollenstreetgroup.com

Media enquiries

Capify
Ash Yazdani
Ash.yazdani@capify.co.uk

Pollen Street Capital
PollenStreetCapital-LON@fgsglobal.com

Staying Vigilant in the Funding Business

There’s a lot of funny business going on these days, so here are some things for you and your merchants to look out for:

The LOC Bait and Switch
A scammer offers the customer an impossibly good deal on a line of credit that is contingent on first entering into some other product. After the customer enters into the first transaction, the LOC offer and the scammer disappear. If your customer is susceptible to falling for something like this, make sure to advise them ahead of time accordingly.

The Mystery Funder
Despite a customer claiming to work exclusively with you as a broker, at some point a third party mysteriously enters the process and offers a separate deal to them to compete with you. Although there could be many reasons for this happening both legitimate or otherwise, including the customer not being completely forthright about exclusivity, you should communicate with your customer beforehand about who or who not to expect a communication from. Also, there are methods you can use to mitigate this by plugging up common attack vectors like an email address or phone # on a submitted application. Allow an attorney to guide you on how to do this most effectively and legally.

The Debt Advisor
Beware the debt advisor who claims they are there to help a merchant reduce the obligations of their loans or advances as many do not understand the contracts they claim to advise on. Because of this, they can potentially push a customer into a much worse situation than they otherwise might’ve been in. A merchant’s best bet is to communicate directly with the source of capital on their own. Oftentimes a contract spells out the proper protocol to follow depending on what the situation is.

Pac-man
They got hot full packs for sale including bank statements, social security #s, and other data ready to send your way! Before engaging in any such transaction, please consult with an attorney about the potential implications of doing something like this. Same goes for you if you were thinking about “selling your declines.”

The Ghost
Brokers often complain about customers falling for obvious scams over the phone, including the classic LOC scam, however, brokers can be just as susceptible to the same tactics. Before working with any lender or funder, you should conduct a full range of due diligence on them. This includes investigating their precise address, who the owner is, what their background is, what their ISO contract says, what their merchant contract says, etc. Too often brokers are drawn in by a commission they believe they stand to make and a smooth talking biz dev rep they talked to on the phone and skip over all the fundamentals. If the funder turns out to be a scammer, then you’ve potentially placed customers with that scammer and put yourself doubly at risk. A commission isn’t worth waiving due diligence. The stakes are too high for this industry.

The Biggest Small Business Funders

Although all of the specific data isn’t entirely available, we’ve compiled a short list of who the largest small business funders were in 2023:

1. Square
2. Enova
3. PayPal
4. Shopify
5. Amazon
6. Intuit
7. Parafin