Â£100m raised by LendingCrowd to support SMEs

Scottish fintech, LendingCrowd, just announced a funding deal with Barclays Bank, and a large global investment firm to support SMEs across Britain as they recover from the COVID19 pandemic and return to growth.

LendingCrowd was recently accredited as a lender by the British Business Bank to deliver the Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS). The £100m funding will be delivered via RLS and also through LendingCrowd’s popular term lending product.

The RLS was launched to support UK firms as they recover and grow. Funds can be used for any legitimate business purpose, including managing cashflow, growth and investment. It is designed to appeal to businesses that can afford to take out additional finance for these purposes.

lendingCrowd will provide RLS loans up to £500,000 over a three, four or five-year term. This is the biggest capital markets deal in LendingCrowd’s eight-year history, with operations expanding and headcount growing by a third to manage the provision of this funding to the SMEs that need it most.

Stuart Lunn, founder and CEO of LendingCrowd, said:

“It is hard to imagine a more difficult business environment than the past 18-24 months, which has seen many small and medium-sized businesses severely limited in how much they can trade, and trying to operate under rapidly changing restrictions, through no fault of their own.

“Many of these SMEs are good, solid businesses that desperately need some extra support. However, there remains a significant unmet demand for business lending, particularly in the £250,000 to £500,000 space. It is crucial for businesses, and for our wider economic recovery, that this demand is properly served.

“We have invested in our tech-enabled lending platform and, together with our funding partners, we will offer businesses automated checks, faster decisions and competitive rates for small business loans. This saves time and hassle for customers, accountants and intermediaries who support these SME borrowers.

“The next few years will require a real collective effort to get our economy back on track ”“ at LendingCrowd we are determined to play our part.”

Those who wish to apply for a business loan, including RLS, through LendingCrowd can do so here: https://www.lendingcrowd.com/recovery-loan-scheme

Scottish Edge round 19, just over 1 week to apply

Applications are open for Scottish EDGE Round 19 and firms have another week to get involved with the deadline at 2pm on Tuesday 15^th February 2022. Firms will compete to win awards, some of which could go up to £100,000.

Interested firms can apply via www.scottishedge.com and will need to complete the online application form which includes a 3-minute video pitch presentation.

Key Support for Round 19:

R19 Workshop ”“ an Online Workshop providing important information for businesses planning on applying is available on replay – https://youtu.be/skeiGHkgA1k

Impact Section Workshop ”“ a virtual workshop that focuses on the Impact section of the application process. It will take place on Wednesday 9^th February, 3pm-4.30pm, register here.

R19 Support ”“ There is also lots of support available on the Scottish EDGE website including the Competition Brochure, a Blank Application Template and a 3-Minute Pitch Videos example.

Scottish fintech Biscuit Tin on Dragons’ Den

Fintech entrepreneur Sheila Hogan, founder of Biscuit Tin, a digital legacy vault, will pitch in front of the dragons on the BBC at 8pm on Thursday 10 February.

Sheila’s will be pitching for early-stage investment to take her new business, launched in 2020, to the next level and increase growth exponentially.

The idea of Biscuit Tin sprang out of Sheila’s personal experience of closing-down the lives of her parents. Her solution aims at empowering and enabling people to organise their death and make the whole process easier for those left behind.

Biscuit Tin enables the secure online storage and encryption of valuable, vital information, all in one place, which is released to those nominated when the time comes. This includes information such as account details, important documents, post-life wishes and memories.

Sheila commented:

“Appearing on Dragons’ Den is a phenomenal experience; preparing and pitching to such a high-profile and massively successful group of businesspeople is daunting yet exhilarating. It has been a fantastic opportunity and enormous privilege for me and Biscuit Tin to be chosen for the show. Through my journey to the Den, I have grown in ways I never imagined. I have learnt so much due to the Dragon’s Den experience and I am more ready than ever to take Biscuit Tin to the next level.”

Flock selects Scottish fintech AutoRek

Scottish fintech AutoRek, just announced that Flock had joined their now extensive list of clients.

Flock is an innovative firm all about reinventing business models around insurance. They are looking to build a global, fully digital insurance company for connected commercial vehicles to mitigates risk, rather than just paying claims.

AutoRek was chosen by Flock because of its flexibility.

Flock will be using AutoRek to:

Automate bordereau, bank and payment reconciliation requirements
Calculate broker payments to generate statements to brokers and paid bordereau
Take various external data sources from other insurance organisations, as well as from the general ledger
Underpin Flock’s Insurance Broker Accounting (IBA) operations

Gordon McHarg, CEO at AutoRek, added,

“It is excellent to have Flock come on board as a new client. We are delighted to be seen as a flexible and adaptable tool to help fast-growing companies like Flock scale their business. We look forward to continuing this partnership over the coming years.”

Piers Williams, Insurance Lead at AutoRek, added,

“We are excited to work with Flock, they are disrupting the insurance industry with innovative new products. Behind their exciting business is a foundation of leading software solutions that are enabling the business to achieve its objectives. Flock will be deploying AutoRek’s bordereau reconciliation and financial control solution to deliver end-to-end automation.”

Fintech DirectID Raises $3m in Bridge Round

Scottish fintech DirectID just completed a $3 million (£2.2m) bridge round led by Hong Kong based venture capital firm QBN Capital. The firm grew its team and revenue by over 100% in the last year and this investment will help them pursue their ambitious growth plans and expand internationally.

DirectID has developed a market leading credit & risk platform that powers some of the world’s largest brands through the use of Open Banking data.

DirectID provides unique insights into customers’ financial situation, enabling financial institutions to have a more realistic view of credit risk and to make faster, more accurate and personalised decisions.

Based in the UK, DirectID is connected to over 13,000+ bank which represents 1.5bn users in over 45 countries.

James Varga, founder, and CEO of DirectID, said:

“We are very excited to have QBN being our lead investor. This funding step will help us grow into more markets and sectors as open banking adoption grows across the world. We are addressing a global pain with our product, redefining credit risk for consumers and businesses alike.”

Philea Chim at QBN Capital said:

“We look forward to helping DirectID expand their business to Asia. Their credit risk platform will make SME financing fairer and more accessible. We see synergies between DirectID and a number of our portfolio companies and QBN’s own initiatives, for example, in supply chain trade finance.”

UK-wide Investment Series announced by FinTech Alliance

FinTech Alliance, the Government-backed digital ecosystem for UK FinTech, has launched its third annual Investment Series, announcing FinTech Scottland as a key partner.

The series aims to bring FinTechs from around the UK together to learn about all aspects of a successful funding round and meet high-profile investors.

FinTechs can:

– Use the FinTech alliance platform for the duration, including the regulated Investment Hub.

– Build their pitch deck with advice from FinTech leaders.

– Network with high profile investors.

– Learn from a series of hybrid workshops on pitching, negotiating deals and more.

Signups are now open for the series, and the process will see a number of regional events across the UK to find the most innovative Seed and Series A FinTechs – including an event in Scotland.

The signup deadline is 30 March, after which there will be a launch party during UK FinTech Week, with workshops running through May and a pitch day in June.

Not ready to raise funds just yet? No problem! You can still take part in all workshops and build your network.

We’re delighted to partner with FinTech Alliance on the series.

For more information, email info@fintech-alliance.com

New Chief Commercial Officer at Legado

Scottish fintech firm Legado announced it had appointed Colin McKay as its first Chief Commercial Officer.

Colin McKay has over 25 years of experience in senior roles in the UK and global banking sector.

McKay was a partner in several firms, including K Legal/KPMG Law, Eversheds, and Shepherd & Wedderburn and he also held a variety of management roles and responsibility for various key institutional accounts.

More recently, Colin spent over 5 years as CCO of Almis International a growing financial technology company in the UK banking market, with responsibilities including both sales and account management.

Josif Grace, CEO & founder of Legado said:

“Colin understands the potential ”“ and increasing need ”“ for personal data storage within the digital experience offered by financial institutions, having worked in both the finance and technology sectors both domestically and internationally. We are delighted Colin has decided to take up this role and help us scale the business, laying the groundwork for continued success.”

Colin McKay said:

“The team has already demonstrated an ability to develop a scalable product and close early enterprise deals, and the market’s clearly starting to open up. So it’s a very exciting time to be coming on board….”

Edinburgh named as one of the UK’s leading tech cities

Edinburgh has been named as a UK’s leading tech cities in the UK thanks to its combination of high levels of VC funding, available tech job, advertised tech salaries, number of current and future high-growth tech companies, according to new analysis for the UK’s Digital Economy Council.

Rewarding skilled tech talents

In Edinburgh, skilled tech talent can see job offers with salaries averaging £58,405 for a new role. This is the highest in the UK outside of London and the South East. There are now over 2,000 tech job vacancies in the city, an increase of 85% since last year.

Sandy McKinnon, Partner at Pentech Ventures, said:

“Edinburgh has steadily been growing as a tech hub over the past few years and this list recognises that. The combination of world-class universities, established IT businesses and unicorns like Skyscanner and FanDuel means there is a lot of exciting talent and innovation in the city. We’re seeing this with newcomers like TravelNest, Desana, Amiqus, Biomage and many others that are disrupting traditional industries – there really is so much potential around the city.”

Investment

Tech companies in Edinburgh have raised £117 million through 47 venture rounds, the second highest number of rounds in the UK. These include health tech Current Health (£32.5), foodtech Parsley Box (£17m), and tidal energy company Nova Innovation (£6.4m).

30% of new unicorns created this year I the UK are established outside of London, including Interactive Investor in Glasgow.

Digital Minister Chris Philp said:

“It’s brilliant to see Edinburgh ranking in the top five regional cities for UK tech, with innovative Scottish startups helping tackle some of the world’s major challenges.

“Capitalising on this brilliant growth across the whole of the UK is part of our mission to level up and we are supporting Scottish companies with pro-innovation policies to help people and get the skills they need.”

Levelling Up Power Tech League 2021:

Cambridge
Manchester
Oxford
Edinburgh
Bristol
Leeds
Birmingham
Newcastle
Cardiff
Belfast

Photo by saifullah hafeel from Pexels

Growing International Diversity of Fintech SMEs in Scotland

Fintech has accelerated as a global innovation movement during the pandemic and Scotland is making a positive contribution to this force of change in the digital economy

FinTech Scotland has confirmed that the number of international fintech SMEs in the SME community has grown by over 40% over the past twelve months, complementing the growth of local start-up and growth enterprises.

In recent months companies such as YayPay and Pace AP from the USA, WeFund from Australia and Pulse Market from Ireland have become part of the growing Fintech Scotland community.

The diverse origination of the international SMEs in Scotland’s Fintech community is highlighted by the visual below.

This growing global influence in the Scotland fintech community was a key theme of this year’s Fintech Festival which concluded last Thursday its four-week programme of sixty plus events, innovation meet-ups and conferences.

The Festival included FinTech Scotland’s collaboration with Scottish Development International and UK Department for International Trade Festival to host events with enterprises in Australian, USA and Asia to highlight inward investment and export opportunities.

The global fintech opportunities was also one of the themes discussed at the Accelerating UK FinTech Conference’ hosted by FinTech Scotland last week, with presentations from Fintech leaders across the UK including Ron Kalifa, Regional bodies and Government Ministers.

FinTech Scotland used the conference to release a “Building a Global Fintech Cluster” prospectus (brochure) to further build on the momentum driving fintech innovation and collaboration.

Commenting, the Executive Chair of Fintech Scotland, Stephen Ingledew said

“The ongoing collaboration of inspiring FinTech leaders will enable us grasp the global innovation opportunities and the UK wide conference in Glasgow was an ideal opportunity to demonstrate this with colleagues and friends from all corners of our country”

Commenting on the FinTech Scotland Festival, CEO of FinTech Scotland Nicola Anderson said,

This year’s festival has reinforced the dynamism, breadth, and capability of fintech innovation in Scotland. We were privileged to be joined by so many fintech and industry leaders sharing experiences, knowledge and opportunities. We’re looking to more collaboration and to supporting the digital and green economy through continued fintech innovation.”

Scottish fintech Legado partners with MoneyHub

Today, Scottish fintech Legado announced a new partnership with open finance company Moneyhub.

Moneyhub customers will benefit from Legado’s encrypted personal Digital Vault services , enabling them to store their pension, life insurance and mortgage statements and policy documents securely and electronically.

By holding all those documents from different providers in one place, Moneyhub users can get a clearer picture of their financial histories and plan for the future. They will also be able to securely share those documents with selected third parties, such as advisers, friends and family. Each user will receive their own personal, portable and access-controlled vault, with features including after-death sharing and data integrations.

Legado is backed by UK insurer M&G and Edinburgh-based global platform-as-a-service provider FNZ, both part of the FinTech Scotland cluster.

Sam Seaton, CEO of Moneyhub said:

“As an Open Finance and Open Banking leader, Moneyhub truly is a hub for money, offering connections to pension and wealth management accounts, banking, insurance and investment, and more. And one thing all the various account types have in common is paperwork, which is why we have partnered with Legado to offer our clients a market-leading digital vault solution.”

Josif Grace, CEO & Founder of Legado said:

“As two technology leaders focused on helping businesses create exceptional digital experiences and consumers better prepare for the future, this partnership made a lot of sense. We are delighted to be working with the team at MoneyHub to create a world-class proposition.”