SME lender iwoca secures new £200m funding led by Citi - increasing investment in the business to almost £1.5bn

• Fintech iwoca, one of Europe’s largest SME lenders, secures a new funding line of £200m from Citi and Waterfall Asset Management to support record demand for SME finance. 
• The lender expands further into medium-sized businesses by doubling the size of its core product — the Flexi-Loan — to £1 million.
• This comes as iwoca sees record commercial growth, placing it among the top 10 UK fintechs by both revenue and profit alongside the likes of Monzo, Starling and Revolut, according to the latest available figures.

‍iwoca, one of Europe’s largest SME lenders, announces a new £200m package of debt funding from Citi and Waterfall Asset Management and doubles its SME loan offer ceiling to £1 million.The funding follows a series of investment rounds in the past two years, attracting £740m debt funding from partners including Citi, Barclays, Värde Partners, Pollen Street Capital, and Insight Investment. This takes investment in the business to almost £1.5bn since launching in 2012. 

‍iwoca doubles Flexi-Loan limit to £1m to serve more medium-sized businesses

‍The fintech lender has doubled the size of its maximum loan as it looks to meet as yet untapped demand for larger loans from medium-sized businesses. This follows data from iwoca’s latest SME Expert Index, which suggests that almost 1 in 3 brokers believe that loans over £100,000 will see the most new applications over the next six months.

‍UK fintech success story

‍The lender has also recently been placed as one of the top 10 performing fintechs in the UK alongside household names like Monzo, Starling, and Revolut, bringing in £143m in revenue in 2023. One of only two exclusively B2B fintechs in the UK’s top 10 highest performing fintechs by EBITDA and revenue (compiled by investment firm Graffiti), iwoca first hit net profitability in Q4 2022, and has remained in the black since. Its rapid and sustained growth demonstrates its position as a UK fintech success story.Revenues continue to hit record levels in 2024, with an Annualised Revenue Rate of £251m in Q3 2024, up 62% YoY. 

‍2024 already a record year for iwoca lending

‍In 2024, up to the end of October, iwoca has lent £730 million across 35,000 business loans, both records for the business, up YoY of 76% and 82% respectively. 

‍Christoph Rieche, iwoca CEO and co-founder said: “Our vision is to become even more relevant to more businesses. Medium-sized businesses tell us that - just like smaller businesses - they are finding it difficult to access working capital finance. Therefore we have stepped up our offering to also meet their needs with £1 million loans.

“We’re very happy to expand our cooperation with Citi and look forward to being able to finance many more SMEs in the UK with their support. Like so many SMEs, it’s been a rollercoaster over the last decade. The iwoca team has stuck together to ride through the ups and downs and we’re humbled to have now grown to a size where we make a material impact on thousands of SMEs and their communities every month.”