Clearco signs first senior credit facility to help UK e-commerce founders meet rising inventory and supply chain costs
Clearco, the world’s largest e-commerce investor and the company revolutionizing the opportunities for founders to grow their businesses, today announced it had signed a £80M senior credit facility with Pollen Street Capital. The facility supports Clearco in providing fair and fast equity-free capital to UK e-commerce founders and is designed to help accelerate uptake in what has become the company’s second largest market outside of the US.
Clearco was established in 2015 and has provided more than £1.4bn of capital to over 5,500 small and medium businesses globally. The deal is the latest milestone on its journey to creating a diverse hub of growth products and services that effectively remove the barriers founders traditionally face, including providing growth capital in exchange for sharing future revenue. It is also Clearco’s first localized credit facility, representing a commitment to the UK as the company’s international growth continues to gather momentum.
“Clearco was created to make it fairer and easier for people to get the finance, data and guidance they need to accelerate the growth of their business. Today’s announcement is designed streamline the back end process and help to make our offering even more accessible to founders. It signals a new way of doing business for us as we expand globally, and means we can truly offer the most founder-friendly way forward,” explained Andrew D’Souza, Co-Founder and CEO of Clearco.
Small businesses in the UK have increasingly turned to challenger banks and alternative finance platforms, as traditional high street lenders have withdrawn from providing loans. These new providers now account for up to 50% of all financing for small and medium enterprises in Britain.
One of the factors driving Clearco’s uptake in the UK has been its unique ability to fuel entrepreneurship and opportunity outside of traditional networks and regions. Using an AI-powered algorithm, Clearco plugs into the apps that power e-commerce businesses to make a decision on financing of £10,000 to £10M within 24 hours. Because the company uses AI to automate its decision making process it is removing bias. Clearco funded eight times as many companies headed by female founders as traditional VC firms and 70% of its UK investments are in businesses outside of London.
“We are excited to partner with an innovative business such as Clearco and to become their first funding partner in the UK. This investment aligns strongly with Pollen Street’s commitment to investments that drive positive impact. Clearco is funding growing, productive businesses across the UK while removing bias out of investment decisions, thus changing the face of entrepreneurship in the UK and beyond,” said Michael Katramados, Partner, Pollen Street Capital.
