The largest funding transaction into the growing Nordic SME lending space to date
STOCKHOLM — DBT (www.dbt.se), the Stockholm-based leading European SME lender, has closed a SEK 3,1 billion debt facility to accelerate its lending to Swedish SMEs from NatWest and Värde Partners. The funding enables DBT to scale further and support more SMEs across all industries with simple access to growth funding.
Swedish-based SME lender DBT has entered into a funding agreement with leading UK bank NatWest and the American global investment firm Värde Partners to lend up to SEK 3,1 billion to Swedish SMEs. The funding agreement will enable DBT to continue meeting the strong demand for growth and innovation oriented corporate loans, demand which has increased in light of the current European energy crisis, fuel price increase and inflation surge, all of which have impacted SMEs.
- This is a milestone financing arrangement which enables us to support even more scaling SMEs across Sweden. It comes at the best possible time, as the SME companies we support see increased need for flexible yet long term strong financing in light of the current energy crisis, inflation surge and rising fuel prices, said Alexis Kopylov, CEO and co-founder of DBT.
Since its inception in 2017, DBT has built a unique position within growth financing to SMEs leveraging its credit intelligence technology platform, which by leveraging real-time client data enables tailored and scalable funding with faster turnaround to borrowers. DBT’s proprietary technology platform for risk assessment and lending has allowed the company to lend more than SEK 2 billion in the past six years. Data shows that DBT’s borrowers have outperformed other SMEs by 7x in terms of growth¹.
NatWest, the UK’s biggest bank for business, has an established presence in Europe via different entities and a long standing local presence in Sweden, and have been supporting specialty lenders across SMEs, consumers and other sectors for a number of years.
- Stable access to credit is crucial to the success and growth of SMEs and their positive impact on the economy. Our backing of DBT represents a further step towards our commitment to remove barriers to enterprises and allow them to grow. DBT shares our commitment to serve the growing SME market and we are pleased to further support DBT’s ambition and work with them, says Olmo Montesanti, Co-Head of Private Financing Sales Europe at NatWest Markets N.V., one of NatWest’s entities in Europe.
Värde Partners has more than 20 years of experience investing across the capital structure in consumer finance, commercial finance and other areas related to financial services. The firm currently manages $2 billion of financial services debt and equity investments across a variety of underlying asset classes including secured and unsecured consumer loans, motor vehicle financing, commercial equipment finance, residential housing finance and consumer and commercial credit cards.
- We welcome the opportunity to establish this partnership to help fund DBT’s aspirations and further expand our provision of commercial finance capital in Europe. DBT have invested considerably in their platform and have developed differentiated SME loan underwriting capabilities. Fintech lenders like DBT are going through a period of extraordinary growth due to a secular shift in their favor. Borrowers, both commercial and consumer, are increasingly demanding more tailored forms of capital to fund their growth and purchases. We believe this has created a substantial asset-based lending opportunity for us that is set to grow materially over the next five years, said Aneek Mamik, Partner and Global Head of Financial Services at Värde Partners.
- NatWest has been a great partner to work with and we’re grateful for their continued strong support as lender. With this new transaction we also welcome Värde Partners as a new collaboration partner. Both are well renowned financial institutions sharing our commitment to close the SME funding gap, added Alexis Kopylov.
¹Annual revenue growth 2017-2020 for Swedish AB’s with 5-100 employees
DBT in brief
DBT was founded in 2017 with the ambition of creating better growth opportunities for Sweden’s small and medium-sized companies. Leveraging its credit intelligence platform DBT combines a rational tech and data-driven process with a personal and qualitative collaboration to offer SMEs simple access to growth funding. DBT’s corporate financing is aimed at limited companies across all industries that need to borrow SEK 3-30 million. DBT is a registered financial institution with the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. For more information, please visit www.dbt.se
NatWest Markets in brief
NatWest Markets helps corporate and institutional customers manage their financial risks and achieve their short- and long-term financial goals while navigating changing markets and regulation. NatWest Markets N.V. is registered in Amsterdam and provides its European customers with access to EU capital markets. NatWest Markets N.V.’s branches are located in the UK (London), Germany (Frankfurt), France (Paris), Sweden (Stockholm), Italy (Milan), and Ireland (Dublin).
Värde Partners in brief
Värde Partners is a leading global alternative investment firm specializing in credit and credit-related assets. Founded in 1993, the firm has invested through multiple credit cycles, building on its roots in special situations and distressed to invest more than $90 billion across the credit quality and liquidity spectrum in both public and private markets. Värde currently manages over $13 billion in assets with teams in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific focused on Corporate & Traded Credit, Real Estate, and Financial Services.
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