Greensill, a London, United Kingdom — based non-bank provider of working capital finance for companies globally, received a $655m follow-on investment from the SoftBank Vision Fund.
The company intends to use the funds to accelerate its global expansion and step up the development of new products.
Proceeds will primarily be used to accelerate its international expansion plans and to finance strategic acquisitions of complementary businesses into the Greensill family.
The company is also announcing the acquisition of FreeUp, a London-based company founded by tech entrepreneurs Reuben Saxon, Marta Krupinska and David Townsend, that is developing technology to enable workers to receive early payment for earned, but unpaid, wages at zero cost to the employee.
With FreeUp a part of Greensill, it is expected that a pilot of the new product will begin immediately with a full launch to come in the next few months.
Led by founder and CEO Lex Greensill, Greensill is one of the largest non-bank bond issuers in Europe, providing more than $150 billion of financing to more than 8 million suppliers and customers across more than 165 countries during 2019.
In the past 14 months, the company has raised more than $1.7 billion from leading institutional investors, General Atlantic and SoftBank Vision Fund.
The SoftBank Vision Fund’s commitment followed its initial $800m investment made in May 2019. As part of the follow-on, Hayley Chan, Vice President at SoftBank Investment Advisers, will join the Greensill board alongside existing SBIA representatives Colin Fan and Tom Cheung.
FinSMEs
28/10/2019