By Mark McSherry

London-based fintech Iwoca, one of Europe’s largest SME lenders, announced a new £200 million package of debt funding from Citi and Waterfall Asset Management and doubled its SME loan offer ceiling to £1 million.

The funding follows a series of investment rounds in the past two years, attracting £740 million debt funding from investors including Citi, Barclays, Värde Partners, Pollen Street Capital, and Insight Investment.

This takes investment in the business to almost £1.5 billion since launching in 2012.

‍The fintech lender said it 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 one in three brokers believe that loans over £100,000 will see the most new applications over the next six months.

‍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 £143 million in revenue in 2023.

‍In 2024, up to the end of October, Iwoca has lent £730 million across 35,000 business loans, both records for the business.

‍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.”