London, January 2019: MarketInvoice, a business finance company, got $34 million in equity and $39 m in debt funds to expand its operations in the U.K. and set up in new markets. The equity investment was led by units of Barclays and Santander banks while Viola Credit provided the debt.

Founded in 2011 by Anil Stocker and two partners, MarketInvoice funds invoices and business loans to UK companies through an online lending platform. It has provided over $3 billion in funds and has offices in London’s Silicon Roundabout and in Manchester.

Stocker, who studied economics at Cambridge, earlier worked for Lehman Brothers, that filed for bankruptcy in 2008 leading to the 2008-2009 financial crisis. “I think it’s interesting to look at the rise of FinTech businesses from the fallout of the global financial crisis and specifically how FinTech companies have re-focused on knowing their customers and building a business that serves them,” Stocker notes on his blog.

The terms of a sales invoice normally dictate a long payment period that can be up to 120 days, leaving businesses with a cash flow gap in the interim. Businesses, who sell goods or services to other businesses, can upload or sync their invoices to MarketInvoice’s platform and sell them to investors. They are thus able to get quicker access to their funds and pay a fee to MarketInvoice for their service.

Investors on the platform, who buy the invoices at a discount, include high net worth individuals, institutional investors and government authorities including the British Business Bank.

Whilst working in financial services in his early twenties and spending time with many company CFOs, Anil realized how difficult it was for small businesses to raise the funding they needed to drive their business forward. His goal was to use technology and data, to compete with outdated financial services, and reinvent how businesses finance their growth, .

In 2013, the UK government via the British Business Bank, began lending to businesses through MarketInvoice’s platform. This partnership has now seen over $200 million provided to more than 1200 businesses in the UK.

MarketInvoice is a member of the Peer-to-Peer Finance Association and is backed by leading European venture capital fund Northzone (invested in Klarna, iZettle and Trustpilot) and private equity group MCI Capital (also invested in iZettle, Azimo and Gett).

Barclays Bank takes minority stake

In August 2018, Barlcays took a minority equity stake in MarketInvoice and offered the service to its small and medium business clients. Anil Stocker, MarketInvoice CEO, said “Barclays has a long history of innovation being the first bank (in the U.K.) to introduce the credit card and the ATM. It makes total sense to partner and introduce our online business finance solutions for their large customer base… It’s exciting to be combining the knowledge and footprint of a 325-year old British banking institution with MarketInvoice’s tech-led online finance solutions. Bringing this together in a strategic partnership can only mean good news for UK businesses, with the segment we’re targeting responsible for upwards of 60% of UK employment.”

In 2018, Barclays launched $130,000 unsecured lending for small and medium businesses, doubling its maximum for unsecured business loans. This increase adds to Barclays' unsecured lending offering which allows qualifying clients to access pre-assessed loans of up to $30,,000 via their mobile and through online banking, often receiving the cash that same day.

With over 325 years of history and expertise in banking, Barclays operates in over 40 countries and employs approximately 80,000 people

 Ian Rand, CEO of Barclays Business Bank, said “Invoice financing gives small businesses the power to obtain funding in a fast and innovative way…Our corporate bank already offers invoice financing to large businesses, so it’s great news that we’re able to extend the proposition to work for our (small and medium) clients as well.” Manuel Silva Martínez, Managing Partner at Santander InnoVentures said “MarketInvoice is helping UK businesses access much needed funding to keep their businesses and ideas thriving in a very competitive market.”

CTO hired from Silicon Valley using U.K.’s exceptional talent visa

In 2018, MarketInvoice hired Rija Javed as the company’s chief technology officer. Rija began her engineering career in Canada with IBM and Research in Motion before moving to Silicon Valley in 2012. After working at gaming company Zynga she joined automated financial adviser Wealthfront Inc. in 2013. Within her first few months, she built Wealthfront’s first mobile app before moving onto its investment products platform. Over a period of four years, she helped scale the business as well as lead their biggest initiative to build a new brokerage and banking platform. This allowed them to expand into financial services and improve client experience.

Anil Stocker, CEO and co-founder at MarketInvoice added: “The Exceptional Talent Visa endorsed by Tech Nation made Rija’s move to the UK very straight forward. Such schemes will ensure the UK continues to attract exceptional foreign individuals who want to build their careers in the UK. If London is to continue being the European hub for tech, and if it is to grow to rival other internationally significant tech centres, we must ensure the UK retains a welcoming eco-system for EU and non-EU nationals alike.”