NAB to fund energy fintech Brighte, backed by Mike Cannon-Brookes

National Australia Bank has applied its special lending framework designed to support fintech start-ups to offer a scalable, debt financing package to Brighte, the home energy lender backed by Atlassian founder Mike Cannon-Brookes.

NAB has provided a $20 million debt facility to Brighte, which will make its first drawdown on the funds in the coming weeks, and the bank has an appetite to increase that amount. Demand for solar panels and batteries is expected to surge as more households look to reduce home energy bills.

The deal is the latest for NAB in the fintech space, after it provided a debt facility to instalment payments provider Afterpay, which was initially set at $20 million but has expanded to around $380 million given the start-up’s rapid growth. NAB also provided a $200 million debt facility for zipMoney, another point of sale payments offering listed on the ASX.

NAB’s executive general manager of client coverage in corporate and institutional banking, Cath Carver, said the debt deals came after NAB developed a new policy for supporting financial technology companies.

“This sector is on the move – technology-enabled finance companies are still newish, so we have put a structure around lending to them to make sure NAB understands what we are doing from a strategic point of view,” Ms Carver said. All the deals followed extensive due diligence processes.

Katherine McConnell, the founder and CEO of Brighte and former senior manager at Macquarie, said securing a lending facility with a bank “has been the holy grail since we set up the company”.

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Source: NAB to fund energy fintech Brighte, backed by Mike Cannon-Brookes | afr.com