London-based FinTech kennek has raised $12.5 million in a seed funding round to grow its operating system for lenders serving the private debt market.
The firm will use the new funding to build upon its existing traction in the United Kingdom, expand its reach into continental Europe, enlarge its tech team and accelerate its product roadmap, kennek said in a Tuesday (Oct. 10) press release emailed to PYMNTS.
The company’s platform is designed to save lenders the time they currently spend on menial operational tasks and dealing with jumbled data, Xavier De Pauw, co-founder of kennek, said in the release.
“Lenders are really just at the start of the digitalization journey,” De Pauw said. “kennek is here to help accelerate that journey and provide them with the tools to capitalize on the growth of the non-bank lending space.”
Thibault Lancksweert, co-founder of kennek, added in the release: “One of the unique things about the kennek platform is that it can cater for all different types of B2B loans: bridge & development loans, SME [small and medium-sized enterprise] term loans, R&D and grant advances … to name just a few.”
With these capabilities, the platform caters to the $2.3 trillion private debt market that is part of a wave of alternative lending that is growing at a time when banks’ lending activities are under growing pressure, according to the press release.
The kennek platform covers various aspects of lenders’ operations — from loan underwriting through monitoring, servicing and investor reporting — using application programming interface (API) technology, the release said.
Barbod Namini, partner at HV Capital, which led kennek’s seed funding round, said in the release that the platform can be “the foundation of the entire alternative lending space.”
“It is a complicated market and a solution that brings together all information and stakeholders onto a single platform is highly compelling for both lenders and the ecosystem as a whole,” Namini said.
Banks’ pullback on small business lending is creating an opportunity for FinTechs to step in with platforms and alternative lending sources, PYMNTS reported in January. By leveraging data to gauge a business’ financial health, these platforms and sources are helping get credit extended where it’s needed.
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