Finexkap is a French working capital financing platform to purchase SMEs’ receivables on the web through refinancing vehicles managed by Finexkap AM, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Finexkap. The platform provides a market-disruptive short-term funding solution to entrepreneurs needing fast access to financing, and the company plans to use the Series A cash injection to scale up its data and product operations, increase its marketing efforts and make additional strategic recruitments. The company will use the 15 million US$ of commitments secured for its refinancing vehicle to fund the first batch of receivables.
GLI Finance invested 4.1 million US$ in July 2014 as part of the Series A funding round and now has a 26.44% equity stake in the company following completion of the overall fundraising. Other investors include Finsight, a globally focused Fintech investment fund which includes partner, and former COO and Board Member of LendingClub, John Donovan, as well as Fintech private investors and family offices. Since its inception, Finexkap has been advised in its financial strategy and fundraising by Luc Hardy of Sagax, an early investor in and advisor of, LendingClub.
In France, the acquisition on a regular basis of non-matured receivables is a credit activity which only licensed credit institutions can carry out. After extensive and collaborative regulatory review processes with the French Financial Markets Authority (“AMF”) and necessary legal structuring, Finexkap AMÂ has just secured a licence which allows refinancing vehicles managed by Finexkap AM to buy non-matured receivables and, consequently, operate throughout the European Union and in other states party to the European Economic Area agreement.
Cédric Teissier and Arthur de Catheu, co-founders and CEOs of Finexkap, said: ‘The data-driven models we have developed are applied to a securitisation fund. Our investors have access to this fund without any need to analyse the underlying assets. This differs from the marketplace model where companies auction their receivables that many investors, relying on qualitative rather than solvency tests, in reality do not know how to price. With the latter model, the risk/ return ratio ends up being uncorrelated and it is difficult for such a company to scale to a sustainably profitable size. At the end of the day, our solution enables investors to finance SMEs’ working capital through a diversified exposure to receivables.”
Finexkap’s platform plans to launch its financing activities in Q4 2014.