SME financing platform Stenn lands $50m equity investment

London-based digital SME financing platform Stenn has landed a $50 million equity investment from Centerbridge Partners.

Stenn founder and CEO Greg Karpovsky

The new funding takes the fintech’s valuation to $900 million.

Stenn leverages its proprietary tech stack to crunch big data and run algorithms that analyse fraud and compliance risks to “de-risk” credit, making it easier for global SMEs to access growth capital.

Stenn founder and CEO Greg Karpovsky says: “A lack of access to finance is stunting the growth of SMEs around the world that are engaged in international trade.

“At Stenn, our purpose has always been to level the playing field for global SMEs, helping to plug a multi-trillion-dollar financing gap by connecting these businesses with low-cost institutional capital.”

Stenn is able to provide cross-border capital to SMEs within 48 hours and capital is provided by some of the largest financial institutions in the world, with Stenn managing the allocation of funds on their behalf. The platform has financed more than $6 billion worth of transactions to date.

While SMEs constitute more than a quarter of global trade, research conducted by Accenture reveals SMEs currently face a global financing gap worth $3.6 trillion, which is expected to rise to $6.1 trillion within the next three years.