Just a few months after securing $1.2 million in equity capital to continue global expansion of its SME lending, Bitbond announced it received a €5 million debt commitment from German commercial real estate firm, Obotritia Capital.
As previously reported, Bitbond received a regulatory license by German financial services supervisor, BaFin, in October 2016. This made the service one of the first and only regulated blockchain based financial services providers in the lending space. The online lender connects investors who seek above average fixed-income investment opportunities with small business owners in need of financing. To make global cross-border lending possible, the platform uses the bitcoin blockchain for payment processing. At the time of securing the $1.2 million in equity capital, Berlin-based online lender raised total funding of $2.3 million.
Bitbond conducts a credit check based on the revenue data of the merchants who use the loans for inventory financing. In September 2016, Bitbond launched its automated scoring mechanism at Finovate New York. More than 1,600 loans worth $1.2 million have been originated on Bitbond since its launch, and the lender has seen over 76,000 users from 120 countries have registered with its service to date.
According to various reports, Bitbond is planning to use the funds from the debt commitment to further grow its bitcoin network by reaching out to small business and independent sellers. Founder and CEO of Bitbond, Radoslav Albrecht, revealed in a statement:
“The debt commitment by Obotritia brings Bitbond to the next level in our efforts to provide universal SME financing. The next step is to work with partners. Such partners could be online marketplaces who want to add value to their platforms by giving their merchants access to instant cash through Bitbond.”
Bitbond added that as part of the debt investment, Obotritia Capital has also purchased a stake in the lender. The terms of that deal have yet to be disclosed.