Kriya (company)

Kriya Finance Limited
FormerlyMarketFinance Limited, MarketInvoice Limited
Company typePrivate
IndustryBusiness lending, financial technology
Founded29 July 2010; 14 years ago (2010-07-29)
FounderAnil Stocker, Ilya Kondrashov, Charles Delingpole
Headquarters48-50 Scrutton Street, London EC2A 4XQ
Websitekriya.co

Kriya (formerly MarketFinance Limited and MarketInvoice Limited[1][2]) is a British business finance lender, specialising in invoice finance, business loans and embedded finance. It is described as a FinTech company.[3]

Description

The company is based in London. To date, it has facilitated approximately £20 billion of B2B payments and advanced approximately £3 billion in credit to UK SMEs.[4]

The company has a partnership with Barclays bank.[3]

History

Anil Stocker has served as CEO and Cofounder since the company began and Ilya Kondrashov as Cofounder and Chairman of the Risk Committee. Giles Andrews OBE was appointed the first chairman of the company in 2017.[5]

In 2013 the British Business Bank, began funding businesses through their platform.

On 12 November 2019, MarketInvoice was renamed MarketFinance as it launched a new business loans product.[6]

In 2021 the company was accredited under the Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS). It was also accreddited with under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), having lent £250m to companies across the UK.[citation needed]

In November 2022 the company was renamed to Kriya.

Financing

Kriya's history of obtaining finance is as follows:[7][8][9]

Year Amount Investors Note
2011 £930,000 anonymous seed funding
2015 £6m Northzone, and Paul Forster series A[10]
2016 £7.2m[11] Northzone, and MCI Partners
2019 £26m Barclays bank, Santander Innoventures, Northzone and Viola Credit.[12] series B
2021 £280m debt and equity fundraise
2022 £100m Deutsche Bank[13] debt financing

Products & customers

In 2017 the company released a Confidential Invoice Discounting facility that would allow businesses to upload their entire invoice book to borrow against.[14] In 2018 Kriya launched a business loan product followed by an embedded finance product in 2021.[15]

Investors fund businesses through Kriya's platform. These investors include institutional investors as well as regional funds and banks.

In 2018 Portugal's bank Banco BNI Europa and the German Varengold Bank announced that they would lend £90m and £45m respectively through Kriya's platform.[16]

In 2018 Kriya announced a partnership with Barclays bank to provide invoice finance to Barclays' business customers.[17]

Reception

Kriya was featured in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 ‘Ones to Watch’ list in 2017 and 2018.[18] It won an Excellence Award for Most Innovative Invoice Financing Solutions in 2018.[19]

References

  1. ^ "MARKETFINANCE LIMITED – Filing history (free information from Companies House)". beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
  2. ^ "MarketInvoice rebrands as MarketFinance as it launches SME lending up to £250k – AltFi News". AltFi. Archived from the original on 27 November 2019. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
  3. ^ a b Ryan Weeks (2 August 2018). "MarketInvoice strikes strategic deal with Barclays". AltFi. Archived from the original on 17 October 2019. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  4. ^ JD Alois (19 March 2018). "UK Fintech MarketInvoice Tops £2 Billion in Online Lending". Crowdfund Insider. Archived from the original on 17 October 2019. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  5. ^ Anthony Strzalek (20 March 2017). "Giles Andrews appointed MarketInvoice chairman". FStech. Archived from the original on 18 October 2019. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  6. ^ "FinTech firm MarketInvoice reveals new name". BusinessCloud.
  7. ^ "Businesses finance raised – Bank of England". Bank of England. Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2019.
  8. ^ "SMALL BUSINESS FINANCE MARKETS 2014 – Publication" (PDF). British Business Bank. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2019.
  9. ^ "Startup of the Week: MarketInvoice – Wired.co.uk". Wired.co.uk. 25 April 2012. Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2019.
  10. ^ "MarketInvoice raises £6m – UKTN". UKTN. 17 August 2015. Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2019.
  11. ^ Steve O'Hear (18 July 2016). "MarketInvoice raises another £7.2M – TechCrunch". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2019.
  12. ^ Nicole, Emily (21 January 2019). "London fintech Marketinvoice lands £56m in funding from Barclays and Santander". City A.M. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  13. ^ "MarketFinance raises £100m from Deutsche Bank". AltFi. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  14. ^ Kathryn Gaw (9 February 2017). "MarketInvoice launches new invoice finance product". www.p2pfinancenews.co.uk. P2P Finance News. Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  15. ^ Ryan Browne (31 October 2017). "This UK fintech is taking on big banks with business loans — and one key EU law is driving it". cnbc.com. cnbc. Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  16. ^ "BNI Europa and Varengold provide £135 million funding to MarketInvoice platform". Finextra. Finextra. 26 March 2018. Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  17. ^ Ryan Weeks (2 August 2018). "MarketInvoice strikes strategic deal with Barclays". AltFi. Archived from the original on 17 October 2019. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  18. ^ "Tech Track 100 – MarketInvoice". www.fasttrack.co.uk. The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  19. ^ "MarketInvoice – Most Innovative Invoice Financing Solutions 2019 – England". Archived from the original on 25 April 2020. Retrieved 16 January 2020.