Bitcoin SME marketplace loan platform Bitbond today announced that it received a commitment from Obotritia Capital to fund loans worth €5 million. Additionally, Obotritia invested an undisclosed amount of equity in acquiring a stake in Bitbond.
With the debt commitment, SME loans from European prime borrowers will be funded instantaneously on Bitbond. This will reduce the time it takes for business owners to apply and receive a loan to 30 minutes. Last month, the bitcoin-enabled lending marketplace introduced EUR denominated loans to compliment USD-based loans, allowing users to choose whichever they prefer.
The equity investment from Potsdam-based Obitritia will be used by Bitbond for further product development and marketing. Bitbond plans to continue growing its user base with online sellers and small businesses who need working capital financing.
Over 1,700 loans worth €1.4 million were originated through Bitbond since its launch in 2013. 90,000 users from 120 countries registered with the service to date.
Founder & CEO of Bitbond Radoslav Albrecht said:
“The debt commitment by Obotritia brings Bitbond to the next level in our efforts to provide universal SME financing. The next step is to work with partners. Such partners could be online marketplaces who want to add value to their platforms by giving their merchants access to instant cash through Bitbond.”
In October 2016 Bitbond received their own regulatory license by German financial services supervisor BaFin. Bitbond uses the bitcoin blockchain for payment processing and is one of the few fully regulated and licensed blockchain based financial service providers.
Individual and institutional investors finance the loans of small business owners via Bitbond and by that get access to attractive interest rates. Most of the platform’s borrowers are online sellers who run their shops on e-commerce marketplaces like eBay, Amazon or Etsy.
Bitbond conducts a machine learning based credit check which uses the revenue data of merchants. The loans are mostly used for inventory financing. In September 2016 Bitbond launched its own automated scoring mechanism. February of this year saw the highest monthly amount of loan originations on the platform to date.