Swedish Startup Lendify Closes $115M Funding Deal

Swedish peer-to-peer (P2P) lending startup Lendify has secured $115 million in funding from Insight Investment, according to a Bloomberg report on Wednesday (Oct. 21).

Last year Insight Investment supported the digital lender with a 1.5 billion kronor infusion. Past investors have also included Hakan Roos, Martin Gren, Richard Goransso. Lendify Co-Founder John-Christian de Champs also assisted with funding.

Lendify said the latest funding round will help the company advance its European expansion plans.

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Nicholas Sunden-Cullberg said the funding will also help the 2014 startup take control of the consumer loan market.

“Households shouldn’t have any reason to consider any other loan provider,” he told Bloomberg. “We will offer the best price and the best customer experience.”

In the past, the startup was supported by P2P lending and institutional capital. Now it has an estimated loan book of $300 million, as well as approximately 40,000 active savings and loan customers.

Sunden-Cullberg said the company ultimately is aiming to break away from area credit reference agencies, which would “provide us with a stronger position in Sweden and also allow us to export it to new markets.”

He added that to make that happen, “requires data sources that aren’t local, such as transactions on bank accounts.”

Although it is not profitable yet, Lendify’s CEO said the company is faring better than anticipated amid the pandemic. He said credit losses year to date are a bit lower than “the average” of the niche banks in Sweden.

In 2019, Lendify’s parent company Insikt rebranded under its new name, Aura. James Gutierrez, Insikt Co-Founder and CEO told PYMNTS the company had been searching for a new name that better complemented its expanding mission.

He said that at Aura, they aspire to “really see the customer” by looking at less obvious measures beyond what is in a credit score.