How iwoca’s credit line for SMEs can help your business grow

Date 20th June 2017 //
Author Colin Goldstein, iwoca

It’s no secret that small businesses are struggling to get finance from a bank. According to the C2FO Working Capital Outlook Survey in 2016, 54% of SMEs say cash flow is their biggest obstacle to business growth. iwoca is aiming to fix that.

When Tom and Dave, the founders of Brew Lab, a specialty coffee shop in Edinburgh, wanted to expand their business, iwoca helped them manage their cash flow with short-term funding. Many SMEs face the issue that Brew Lab faced – long and complicated application processes make it difficult to access finance from banks. What they need is a fast and simple solution.

At iwoca, our mission is to help SMEs grow by providing access to flexible finance. When Tom and Dave realised that there was potential to grow their business, they decided to open a new coffee shop and to invest in marketing, and in training for their employees. They were able to raise capital from a trade partner to open the café but found that the expansion strained their cash flow. Tom and Dave have a very good relationship with their bank. However, “the bank moves really, really slowly and unfortunately as a small business your time scales aren’t always aligned with a big corporate body.”

“The bank moves really, really slowly and unfortunately as a small business your timescales aren’t always aligned with a big corporate body. With iwoca, the application process was super easy, very quick, very efficient and the help was there when it was needed.”

With iwoca, Tom and Dave found a fast and easy alternative. “We were looking for bridging finance to tie us over between one set of bank finance over to the next.” Within two days of applying they were able to get the funds they needed despite their short trading history.

iwoca was set up in 2012 to make small business finance simple and powerful. So far, iwoca has lent over £200 million to 10,000 small businesses and is aiming to finance one million SMEs by 2025.

The award-winning technology allows iwoca to make decisions within hours based on real business performance, not just a credit score. iwoca’s product integration with Xero enables small businesses to access finance through a simple link from their Xero account and iwoca automatically posts repayments back into Xero, making the process even simpler and faster. In this way, iwoca provides a reliable and easy alternative to traditional business finance.

Useful links: The top financial concerns for small business owners today