Venture Capital: UK Fintech Abound Lands $601M

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Abound raised a mix of debt and equity at an undisclosed valuation.

Abound, a UK-based consumer lending service, has raised £500m ($601m) in equity and debt funding to expand its open banking business. The start-up, which uses open banking data and machine learning algorithms to offer lower interest loans and develop “better credit scores”, will use the funds to finance loans, bring in more customers and invest in its technology.

Its new funding includes debt from Citibank and Waterfall Asset Management and equity from K3 Ventures, GSR Ventures and Hambro Perks. The debt will be used for lending, while the smaller equity part will be used for investing in the business itself.

Abound did not disclose the valuation for the fundraising round.

Abound’s service, which is based on loans of between £1,000 and £10,000, has grown 30% month-on-month since launching in 2020. It has issued loans to more than 150,000 customers to date, and is said to be on track to loan out £1 billion ($1.2 billion) by 2025.

Furthermore, in the last two years, the startup has had 70% fewer default rates than the industry average in the U.K.

“The lending industry is dominated by old practices, like traditional credit scoring, which ignores technological developments of the last decade,” noted Kuok Meng Xiong, CEO of K3 Ventures, in a statement. “Abound is delivering a unique product and a differentiated approach which is already proving itself to work for thousands of customers.”

Abound also plans to expand its business-to-business service in Europe.

Related Story:  Hong Kong-Based FundPark Provides Collateral-Free Loans To SMEs

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