Bitcoin based SME marketplace lender Bitbond has received a commitment from Obotritia Capital to fund loans worth 5 million Euro through its platform. Additionally, Obotritia invested an undisclosed amount of equity to acquire a stake in Bitbond.

With the debt commitment, SME loans from European prime borrowers will be funded instantaneously on Bitbond. This will reduce the time it takes for business owners to apply and receive a loan to 30 minutes.

The equity investment from Potsdam based Obitritia will be used by Bitbond for further product development and marketing. Bitbond plans to continue growing its user base with online sellers and small businesses who need working capital financing.

Over 1,700 loans worth 1.4 million Euro were originated through Bitbond since its launch in 2013. 90,000 users from 120 countries registered with the service to date.

Founder & CEO of Bitbond Radoslav Albrecht said: ‘The debt commitment by Obotritia brings Bitbond to the next level in our efforts to provide universal SME financing. The next step is to work with partners. Such partners could be online marketplaces who want to add value to their platforms by giving their merchants access to instant cash through Bitbond.’

In October 2016 Bitbond received their own regulatory licence by German financial services supervisor BaFin. Bitbond uses the bitcoin blockchain for payment processing and is one of the few fully regulated and licenced blockchain based financial services providers.

Individual and institutional investors finance the loans of small business owners via Bitbond. Most of the platform’s borrowers are online sellers who run their shops on e-commerce marketplaces like eBay, Amazon or Etsy.

Bitbond conducts a machine learning based credit check which uses the revenue data of merchants. The loans are mostly used for inventory financing. In September 2016 Bitbond launched its automated scoring mechanism.