London fintech Kennek raises £10m in seed funding for lending software
London-based fintech Kennek has raised $12.5m (£10.3m) in a seed funding round led by HV Capital, the backer of Hello Fresh, Depop and Flixbus.
The funds will allow Kennek, a software developer that provides a single platform for alternative lenders, to build on its home market and plans for expansion into the EU.
Co-founder Xavier de Pauw said the Kennek’s goal was to provide lenders with the tools to “capitalise on growth of the non-bank lending space”, making lending frustrations “a thing of the past”.
“Until Kennek, lenders had to devote countless hours to menial operational tasks and deal with jumbled and hard-coded data — which makes every other part of lending a headache,” he added.
The software is intended to cope with all kinds of B2B loans.
Another co-founder Thibault Lancksweert said: “Bridge & development loans, SME term loans, R&D and grant advances… to name just a few. And we’re seeing strong demand across the board.”
Barbod Namini, a partner at Berlin and Munich-based HV Capital, said Kennek could “be the foundation of the entire alternative lending space”.
“It is a complicated market and a solution that brings together all information and stakeholders onto a single platform is highly compelling for both lenders & the ecosystem as a whole,” Namini added.
In February Kennek, founded by De Pauw, Lancksweert and Edmund Parsons in 2021, raised $4.5m (£3.7m) in a pre-seed funding round that included Dutch Founders Fund, a venture capital firm created by the founders of WeTransfer and Just Eat among others.