Waddle expanding into New Zealand

Sydney-based fintech outfit Waddle has announced an expansion into New Zealand, as it looks to further capitalise on Australia’s $64 billion invoice finance and factoring industry.

Founded in 2014 by high school mates Simon Creighton, Leigh Dunsford and Nathan Andrews, Waddle is a cloud funding software and addresses what Mr Creighton says was an opportunity its competitors, including Scottish Pacific and banking providers, were failing to address.

“The current process has been done the same way for decades and no one was building software to solve it,” Mr Creighton said.

“Our technology is world-class and is transforming the approach of other lending businesses and banks, by removing how manual and labour intensive the process is.

“The priority in building our product is to make it as simple as possible for SMEs to use, to allow them to spend less time liaising with finance companies and more time growing their business.

“Typically, businesses operate within the lenders’ third-party software and manually upload ­invoices, scan and email supporting documents to the lender on a daily basis.

“It is then a manual step for businesses to get payments and transaction information back in their accounting software, with hidden costs unbeknown to them until after an agreement is ­entered into.”

According to Mr Creighton when compared to traditional options, Waddle cut the time it took to apply and get funded, and removed third parties or bankers from the equation. Traditional factoring software relies on lenders to update transaction information, such as payment from customers.

The co-founders were all juggling full-time work with the inception of their business, heading into the office in Surry Hills after hours to work on Waddle.

At that time, in 2014, Simon and Leigh were working at Trade Advance, a business co-founded by the duo; Simon was also ­employed at IBM; and Nathan was at RBA and Tyro.

Waddle has now funded over $200 million in receivables over the past 12 months, with approximately 60,000 B2B companies in Australia operating in industries suitable for debtor finance, ­according to Dun and Bradstreet. The company plans to double its team over the next six months, and is soon opening an Auckland office.

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Source: Waddle expanding into New Zealand – The Australian