Zvilo, a Balkan-based challenger bank, is reporting a €50m debt facility provided by a “leading London-based alternative asset management company.”
Zvilo says that it plans to offer digital financial solutions that will save users money while focusing on the Balkan region, with a population of over 21 million.
In 2021, Zvilo raised over £660,000 on Seedrs at a pre-money valuation of £8.5 million.
Zvilo offers neo-banking services to both retail users as well as businesses. For businesses, Zvilo offers invoice financing so SMEs can get paid in under 36 hours.
The debt facility will be used to enable short-term working capital in an automated process on Zvilo’s proprietary platform.
Admir Imami, Chairman of Zvilo, said they are delighted to have secured terms for the new facility.
“Zvilo is working on the proposition that supplier financing is a well-penetrated product in Western Europe but not in the Balkans, where the opportunity is enormous. We aim to offer bridge capital to those businesses seeking to finance trade flows originating in and from the Balkans.” The €50m facility will enable us to turbocharge our business lending in Kosovo, followed by the rest of the region, providing innovative working capital solutions to SMEs. This is particularly important in a post-Covid world as SMEs seek to bring trading levels back to pre-Covid times. Our seamless and sustainable funding solutions will help these SMEs with the required liquidity, so they reach their pre-Covid trading levels while also taking advantage of our digital financial product offering.”
Shahem Samian, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Zvilo called the debt facility a huge vote of confidence to Zvilo’s business model.
“Following the recent success of securing our lending (factoring) license from the Central Bank of Kosovo, we have kick started our supplier finance program and are in the exciting final stages of optimising our innovative Supply Chain Finance platform with an artificial intelligence engine. The platform will be an invaluable tool for Zvilo to scale its SME supplier onboarding and funding across the Balkans and assist with our ESG reporting.”
Samian added that the funding was a huge endorsement of their management.
Zvilo currently has offices in both London and Kosovo.