Alt-Lending Back On Top (Just Not In The US)

Alternative finance is back in the game! After a few months of lackluster performance with venture capitalists, alternative lending startups have won big this week thanks to two deals totaling more than $80 million — a figure expected to rise even higher. The startups that secured the investments aren’t based in the U.S., however. Find out where alternative lending remains the apple of VCs’ eyes, as well as the other B2B startups that snagged funding this week.

Alternative Finance

DueCourse

With a focus on invoice financing, DueCourse announced an $8.14 million funding round on Monday (Sept. 19). The company, based in the U.K., cited GFC, Zoopla Founder and CEO Alex Chesterman and Lovefilm Cofounder Simon Franks as having participated in the funding round, according to reports.

The investment round is made up of both equity and debt financing, part of DueCourse’s efforts to bolster financing for companies’ outstanding invoices. The startup uses data from cloud accounting platforms to mitigate risk and uses that data to both identify which businesses are qualified to receive financing and to set rates on that loan. DueCourse said it is hoping to raise Series A funding in the next few months and will seek up to $19.5 million, reports said.

OurCrowd

Alternative finance was the big winner in this week’s B2B venture capital breakdown and not just because it scored multiple funding rounds. OurCrowd scored the biggest deal of the week with $72 million in Series C funding, and that value is expected to rise to $100 million, according to a company announcement on Wednesday (Sept. 21).

OurCrowd is an equity crowdfunding platform based in Israel that enables startup to access funding. According to the startup, participants in the funding round have requested anonymity, but one backer, Singapore bank UOB Group, did come forward. OurCrowd said the new investment will help it expand in Singapore and in Asia overall. According to CEO Jon Medved: “This new capital will help us hit our goal of investing $1 billion annually by 2020.”

Big Data

InfluxData

The $16 million in Series B funding raised by InfluxData is a big boost to its goal of specializing in time-series data. The company, which announced the funding on Wednesday, focuses on being capable of handling the steady — and often overwhelming — stream of data that flows in through IoT-connected devices and other technologies. The company offers its data management technology to Software-as-a-Service companies via its InfluxDB open-source technology.

While the company said it doesn’t yet have a revenue stream, it did tout its developer community. With its latest funding, the company said it will focus on customer acquisition and the development of products to run on top of that platform — and, of course, to hopefully get some revenue streaming in, too.

eProcurement

eBev

It may be an outlier of this week’s B2B VC breakdown, but Australian eBev deserves a mention nonetheless. The company raised $1.13 million, it said on Tuesday (Sept. 20), to support its platform that serves the nation’s wholesale beverage space. Its technology provides an eProcurement portal enabling businesses like bars and independent retailers to search for wholesale beverage sellers and place orders.

The startup said its solution cuts sourcing, inventory management and ordering time and costs and provides data analytics solutions to its buyers to understand how their products are performing in real time.

The $1.13 million raised came through a combination of angel investment led by Sydney Angels, as well as private investors, reports said.