Description
MarketFinance Limited (formerly MarketInvoice Limited) is a British business finance lender, specialising in invoice finance, business loans and corporate finance. MarketFinance was the first company to allow businesses to borrow against individual outstanding invoices.
As of March 2018, MarketFinance had provided over £2bn in invoice finance facilities to UK companies.
In 2018 the company became the first FinTech company to partner with a major highstreet bank in the UK, Barclays bank.
History
MarketFinance, originally named MarketInvoice, was created in 2011 by Anil Stocker, Ilya Kondrashov, and Charles Delingpole in response to the low levels of lending to SMEs by traditional high street banks.
Anil Stocker has served as CEO since the company began and Ilya Kondrashov as MD. Giles Andrews was appointed the first Chairman of the company in 2017.
In 2011 MarketFinance raised £930,000 in seed funding[8] and announced that the UK Government’s development bank, the British Business Bank, would begin to fund businesses through their platform. By the end of 2015 the company had opened an office in Manchester and raised a £6m series A funding round[9] with venture capital firm Northzone and Paul Forster (founder of Indeed.com).
In 2016 MarketFinance received an additional £7.2m in funding from Northzone and MCI Partners.
In 2018, MarketFinance announced that they had funded over £2bn worth of trade on their platform.
In 2019 the company completed a series B funding round raising £45.8m from Barclays bank, Santander InnVentures, Northzone, MCI Capital, and Viola Credit.
On 12 November 2019, MarketInvoice was renamed MarketFinance.
Products
MarketFinance started out offering selective invoice discounting through a proprietary platform that allows sellers' invoices to be matched with investors based on investor risk appetite. Unlike traditional invoice factoring, MarketFinance’s platform allows businesses to choose which invoices they want to borrow against and which they do not.
In 2017 the company released a Confidential Invoice Discounting facility that would allow businesses to upload their entire invoice book to borrow against. In 2018 MarketFinance launched a business loan product.
Partners & Investors
A number of different investors fund business through MarketFinance’s platform, ranging from institutional investors to regional funds and banks.
In August 2013, MarketFinance was awarded £5 million in government funding to lend to small businesses through the Business Finance Partnership. The extension of the scheme, to boost finance through non-bank lenders, was announced by Vince Cable, business secretary. This deal was extended in September 2015 for a further 3 years, taking their total investment in MarketFinance's platform to £10m.
In 2018 Portugal’s bank Banco BNI Eruopa and the German Varengold Bank announced that they would lend £90m and £45m respectively through MarketFinance’s platform.
In 2018 MarketFinance announced a partnership with Barclays bank to provide invoice finance to Barclays' business customers.
Awards
MarketFinance has received several awards and commendations:
- Winners of 2019 Business Excellence Awards for Most Innovative Invoice Financing Solutions
- Winners of the 2019 Wealth & Finance magazine fintech award for Best SME Invoice Finance Solutions Provider
- Featured in 2017 and 2018 The Sunday Times Tech Track 100 ‘Ones to Watch’ list.
- Featured in the 2017 FinTechCity Fintech50 list and the 2018 Fintech50 Hall of Fame
