Liberis, a UK-based embedded business finance platform has received an additional £140M in financing from Barclays Bank PLC and BCI Finance to support its global partner expansion and growth plans over the next two years. This brings Liberis’ total funding raised to £350M, including more than £80M in equity funding. In December 2021 Barclays led a £34M funding round for Liberis.
Finance solutions
The new funds will be used to expand Liberis‘ platform, allowing it to provide fair and increasingly flexible finance solutions to more small businesses via its global partners.
Founded in 2007 by Rob Straathof, Charles Mindenhall and Manoj Badale and based in London, Liberis’ platform uses machine learning to understand a customer’s risk profile and the maximum funding options available to them, allowing for higher origination volumes. This has enabled them to fund nearly $1B in over 50,000 transactions to over 21,000 SMEs across the UK, Europe, and the US.
Partners at play
Liberis’ global partner network includes e-commerce platforms like Klarna as well as acquirers like Barclaycard, Worldpay from FIS, Clover, and Global Payments. These partners collaborate with Liberis to provide personalised revenue-based financing of up to £1M to up to 1M SMEs. Payments are linked to a company’s transactions, allowing them to pay for funds more comfortably and in accordance with their income.
Liberis is backed by investors such as UK-based venture builder Blenheim Chalcot and US-based growth investor FTV Capital, in addition to Barclays and BCI Finance.
Rob Straathof, CEO of Liberis, commented: “This is a great opportunity for Liberis to continue helping SME growth across the globe, especially in such uncertain times that have been brought upon us by the COVID-19 pandemic. This funding will be crucial to supporting our partners in funding their SME customers to close the ever-expanding global funding gap.”
Sean White, MD of Securitised Products Solutions at Barclays, commented: “Barclays is excited to support Liberis with a new senior warehouse facility, which will allow the business to accelerate growth and continue to support smaller SME businesses with their funding needs.”
Sam Kemp, Managing Director at BCI Finance, commented: “We have been partnered with Liberis since 2015 and are delighted to again be evolving our support for the business as it scales. Alternative finance providers such as Liberis, focused on reducing the barriers to accessing working capital, play a vital role in providing SMEs with the funding that they need to operate and grow. This is particularly important during periods of economic uncertainty, and we’re excited to be continuing to work with the Liberis team as they further extend their global reach.”
