iwoca have started offering credit to the two million small businesses in Spain, further expanding its international reach.
Since 2012, iwoca has lent almost £30 million across 5,000 transactions in the UK and Poland. The launch of iwoca Spain is further evidence of the growing global need for alternatives to traditional business finance providers.
This is now the third territory iwoca operate in. They launched their Polish operations in February 2014 and in Poland they grew even faster than their UK business.
iwoca’s research shows that the market opportunity is huge with more than 500,000 Spanish businesses requesting credit in 2013. Of those that didn’t apply for credit, 41% said this was due to short-term poor economic conditions. iwoca offers these businesses credit facilities of up to €50,000, from which they can draw down, repay and top up on demand.
Christoph Rieche, iwoca’s CEO and co-founder told us “Access to finance for small businesses is a global issue and we aim to provide a majority of European small businesses with a mainstream alternative to bank loans by the end of 2015. With more than 20 million small businesses in Europe, we believe the market could quickly surpass the US in terms of loan volume.”
I’d like to add a personal note of congratulations to Christoph and James, the other co-founder. Dan and I first met Christoph over a coffee in London way before iwoca launched. It’s been great to see a company grow from an idea, to a start to now a growing international business. Well done guys!
