Global Founders Capital is finally making its first known investment.
The new firm, launched by Oliver and Marc Samwer back in March 2013, has been mostly silent to this point. But on Monday, news broke that Germany-based credit scoring startup Kreditech would be the lucky recipient of Global Founders Capital’s first funding round: or at least the first we know of.
According to a blog post by Kreditech, the new round of funding weighs in at a “mid-7-digit” total, although TechCrunch believes the amount to be around $3.5 million. While Global Founders Capital led the round, existing investors Blumberg Capital, Point Nine Capital and H2 Investments participated as well.
Kreditech is a fast-growing credit scoring company that uses identification, fraud detection and “scoring decisions based on globally available data sources such as social networks,” in the words of TechCrunch, to avoid using external credit bureau data in their risk analysis. Kreditech uses the info to bring banking services and microlending to emerging markets, letting it move fast in areas where other financial services have yet to take hold.
And it would appear that Kreditech is moving fast indeed. After launching in Feburary 2012, the company is already active in the Czech Republic, Spain and Poland, and plans to launch in Russia, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, Ukraine and Kazakhstan through its Kredito24 platform soon.
“We have turned down every other equity offer we have received, as we are currently fully focused on leveraging our profitable business with alternative financing instruments,” Kreditech CFO Oliver Schimek said on a company blog post.
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“As the money itself is not needed currently, we took the equity offer primarily for the strategic value the new investors bring to the table and to optimize our corporate finances for leveraging working capital.”
Kreditech previously raised $4 million in December 2012, bringing its total backing to date somewhere around $7.5 million.
Read the original Kreditech blog post here.
