Small business lender GetCapital has announced $87.5m in mezzanine funding, with the money slated to make a major difference to its ability to get cash out to SMEs in need.
The funding has been secured via the Australian Office of Financial Management (AOFM) and will allow GetCapital, which has already experienced significant growth, to expand yet further.
“The AOFM is the part of the government that issues debt securities, and back in 2018/9, they set up the Australian Business Securitisation Fund (ABSF), which is a $2 billion fund. It’s the second time that they’ve made an investment from this fund,” said Jamie Osborn, founder and CEO at GetCapital.
“We’re seeing the demand for credit from the SME market has remained strong over the last 12-28 months. We’ve experienced close to 100% growth rate.”
“As we come out of this lockdown, we can see the early signs that the demand is only going to increase. What’s really important to scaling a business like ours is the funding side, and this helps so much with that.”
“It’s a diversification of our funding and it allows us to set ourselves up for even more growth in calendar year 2022.”
With SMEs now more in need of support than ever before, it is vital for a diverse range of funders to be active in the market, and to be able to lend to business.
“It’s critically important,” said Osborn. “One of the things about the SME market is that it is incredibly diverse, and that’s why the mainstream lenders struggle to lend to it. Each business is unique and we see the full spectrum of needs.”
“Having an ability to tailor solutions to customers is absolutely imperative. A one size fits all approach doesn’t work. You need to be highly customised and highly customer-focused to meet that need.”
“Despite our growth, we’re less than 1% market share. The opportunity is huge. For us to get to the size that we want to over the next 3 to 4 years, funding is critically important to us.”
“I think the government has had a lot of foresight here. It’s provided this securitisation fund to support the growth of innovative lenders like GetCapital.”
“That has a straight flowthrough into the SME economy, and allows us to continue doing what we’re doing and to scale it to much bigger heights.”
