Peer-to-peer invoice finance marketplace Grapple to take on big players

The founder of Australia’s first online marketplace for facility invoice financing Grapple says the company can scale up quickly and take on major industry players.

Grapple offers businesses a line of credit against their outstanding invoices, which are fractionalised and parcelled off to investors.

In peer-to-peer lending, a borrower seeks funds from an investor rather than a bank. In Australia, lending to the sector is confined to high net worth individuals and sophisticated investors.

Grapple, the first of its kind marketplace invoice financier in Australia, has two key offerings, says founder and chief executive Stephen Dawson.

The first is it allows businesses to upload a single invoice onto the platform and have a range of investors each fund part of the invoice instantly through an algorithm that instantly bids on behalf of investors.

Single invoice financing hasn’t been done like this before, but Dawson says the second offering is the real game changer.

The company provides businesses with a pre-approved line of credit against their outstanding invoices through a connection to their accounting system, including Xero, MYOB and Sage.

“When they ask for money, say they’ve got a million dollars available and they go, ‘I want two-hundred grand today,’ our system will go and pick out $200,000 worth of invoices and then we’re going to go sell them individually, fractionalize them and distribute them out to all the investors on the platform,” Dawson says.

“We’ll close it all in the same day, move the money across and give it to the person that effectively has their line of credit.”

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Source: Peer-to-peer invoice finance marketplace Grapple to take on big players