Fintech invoice financier Waddle secures funding for $30 million in new loans
This is the first external debt raised by the company since its launch in 2014.
Online lender Waddle has completed its first successful round of funding securing $30 million from an Australian private investment group, which it will use to grow Waddle's loan volume over the next 12 months.
Waddle is a cloud-based platform that allows business owners to obtain automated revolving credit lines for outstanding invoices held in their online accounting packages. The platform is integrated with Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks, with a two-way data exchange allowing Waddle to fund the loan in 24 hours.
It differs from other invoice financing offers on the market in that the funds are delivered in the form of a line of credit. This places Waddle's product outside the scope of "invoice factoring", where invoices are simply purchased by financiers in return for term loans or cash. As Waddle's credit line is still essentially secured by the invoice it can still offer finance for competitive annual rates.
In January 2016, Waddle announced its bid for $18 million of funding for debt and equity, and at that stage had provided $1 million in financing to approximately 20 small and medium enterprises. Prior to this funding round the company had been funded by $1.5 million from the founders, Leigh Dunsford and Simon Creighton.
Invoice financing is a growing market in Australia, with competitors Scottish Pacific, Skippr and FundX all competing for market share. Scottish Pacific had been seeking to raise $282 to $312 million ahead of an initial public offering on 13 July 2016, and it has just been revealed by Street Talk this week that the offering price has been fixed at $3.20 a share.
Increased demand was cited by Waddle as one of the reasons for its funding round, and it will now use the proceeds to increase its loan book volume and enable the company to continue developing.
Businesses looking to apply with Waddle can submit applications for revolving credit lines up to $500,000 based on the value of their unpaid invoices.
