On Thursday, Drip Capital, a five-year-old Silicon Valley startup that aims to bring disruptive fintech to the multi-trillion-dollar global trade finance market, announced that its own ship has come in, so to speak. The company has raised $175 million in a new capital raise, including a $40 million Series C venture capital round and $135 million in warehouse debt facilities. The latest fundraise brings Drip Capital’s total external funding to date to $525 million.
The Series C round was led by disruptive venture capital investor TI Platform, with participation from Accel, Sequoia, Wing VC, Irongrey and GC1 Holdings. The $135 million in warehouse debt includes a $100 million facility with Barclays and a $35 million addition to an existing $40 million facility with Southern California’s largest bank East West Bank.
Drip Capital’s addressable market is the $3 trillion global trade finance gap, where the company specifically focuses on providing access to collateral-free credit to small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S., Mexico and India, using machine learning and cloud technology to facilitate cross-border financial transactions. To date, the company has financed more than $2 billion such transactions.
In a statement announcing the funding round, the company said it will use its new capital to scale its business over the next 18n months, investing in products and technology, and accelerating go-to-market in existing and new geographies like South Asia and Latin America.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has put severe pressure on cash flows of exporters and importers alike. This strain is being felt most by SMBs who have never had easy access to capital,” said Drip Capital CEO and Co-Founder Pushkar Mukewar. “We are excited to welcome TI Platform and Barclays to help further our mission to make global trade easy and accessible to SMBs across the world.”
“We are proud to strengthen our partnership with Drip Capital and excited to support their vision for building the preeminent global trade platform,” said TI Platform Managing Director Alex Bangash . “Global Trade Finance is expected to be a US $10 trillion market by 2026. Drip is comfortably established as the market leader in this space, providing SMEs with vital access to financing. Based on strong unit economics, powerful tech-driven underwriting, and growth trajectory, TI Platform considers it as a good candidate for breakaway upside.”
“Institutional alliances are an important pillar of our strategy,” said Drip Capital’s Head of Capital Markets, Karl Boog. “These strategic partnerships with leading banks like Barclays and EWB are a significant milestone for us. It is a strong testament to the quality of our assets and ability to grow our customer base rapidly.”
