The recently completed second quarter was a busy one for QED Investors, co-founder and managing partner Nigel Morris said in a recent investor update.
So far this year QED has invested in 14 companies, Morris said, while describing the pace of deal-making as “frenetic”. Seven of those investments were made in Q2, beginning with Spinwheel, a company focused on helping people eliminate debt sooner by embedding the payment, management and application of loans into their most frequently used apps. Spinwheel is beginning with student debt before branching out to credit card, auto and other loan types. This is a wise strategy employed by many fintechs hoping to grow with their user base as they move to different levels of spending.
Solfácil is a Brazilian solar fintech whose $30 million Series B was led by QED. The company believes distributed solar will play an important role is easing stress on the power grid which has been ravaged by a decade of droughts. Solfácil is one of the three largest credit fintechs in Brazil by loan origination.
Based in India, Refyne helps facilitate earned-wage access for the country’s growing middle class and frees them from predatory payday loans and informal lending. Another Brazilian startup, Cora is a technology-enabled SMB lender. Payhawk provides an integrated experience for CFOs to analyze company spends. It is based in London.
Capchase has developed a proprietary programmatic funding platform that gives predictable revenue businesses like SaaS predictable financing required for weekly or monthly growth. Users connect their accounting, payment and banking systems and Capchase turns their data into various metrics. Tribal Credit offers a product suite to emerging market SMBs.
