Money 2020 – Focus On: Liberis Group

What is Liberis Group?

Small businesses experiencing uneven cash flow month to month have limited access to traditional forms of finance.

That’s why Liberis Group have developed a better way to finance small businesses. For businesses who have been trading for over 4 months and take at least £2.5k in customer card transactions per month, Liberis Group offer a cash advance facility which comes at just one fixed cost of finance. This is agreed upfront with their customers, with no interest or APR, late fees or penalties. Ever.

All credit decisions are based on the potential of a business, not just their credit history. This means Liberis Group approve over 70% of applications.

How has the Venture Builder model helped Liberis Group to accelerate the journey from founding to today?

Liberis Group joined Blenheim Chalcot under the name Merchant Cash Express in 2013. After a rebrand to Liberis (the Group part came later), the venture builder model then enabled Liberis to launch their agnostic processor solution in 2014, enabling them to integrate their Business Cash Advance service with all major card processors; an absolute game-changer for them.

Rapid growth and the power of their technology led Liberis to partner with global leader in payment processing, Worldpay. Late in 2015, the partnership saw the launch of Worldpay Business Finance in the UK.

In April 2018, Liberis Group were able to secure debt and equity capital of £57.5m through a number of investors including BCI Finance, Blenheim Chalcot’s investment arm.

In 2019, Liberis rebranded once again as Liberis Group. To date, their achievements include:

• Over £315m of funding provided to almost 10,000 UK companies, partnerships and sole traders.
• Nearly 82,000 UK jobs created or saved – more than 41,000 at the businesses Liberis Group have funded and a further 40,000 through the spending of these businesses and their employees.
• Every £1 of Liberis Group funding increases spending in the economy by over £1.50.
• Over 75% of customers use Liberis Group funding to invest in or grow their business – purchasing stock or new equipment, refurbishing or otherwise expanding the business.

“Liberis is committed to delivering highly flexible funding with cutting-edge technology and automated underwriting so that we can now provide funding from £1,000 to over £300,000 with rates starting from as low as 8%.” says Rob Straathof, Liberis CEO.

He continues “Most customers receive a credit decision within one business day of application, so that they can continue running their business knowing that their funding is taken care of. We are excited about helping to close the $2 trillion global small business funding gap. We’ve grown the funding we provide by over 50% each year since 2014 – and we have far-reaching ambitions to expand throughout the UK and globally. “

Rob will be appearing on Blenheim Chalcot’s Money 2020 panel on Friday June  3 at 5:30pm on The Lab Stage. For more information, please click here.