Source: Myos
Myos, a fintech company that provides working capital solutions for online retailers, raises $30M in Series A funding led by Fasanara Capital and Xploration Capital, both funds with deep expertise in digital lending.
Tomahawk.VC and a group of new and existing investors also participated in the round. With the funds raised, Myos plans to grow its existing customer base in Europe, enter the international market and continue developing the company's AI-based lending platform.
Myos’ independent working capital solution supports merchants in their startup phase - where they are usually considered unbankable by other financiers - and in their growth phase - where merchants benefit from maximal flexibility due to its collateral-based dynamic repayment approach.
"We're a step ahead of traditional lenders because we look at the retail products, not the merchants", says Nikolaus Hilgenfeldt, Co-founder and CEO of Myos. "With Myos, merchants can quickly receive loans of up to a million Euros, without complex business plans or personal guarantees which are often not available in the start-up phase”.
Myos’ AI-based platform monitors the price of the product, its sales success, and the competition on common online marketplaces. It builds a “product potential” score to project the future sales potential and the value of the financed products.
“The transparency of online marketplaces creates the possibility of a fundamentally new risk assessment for trade loans”, says Eugene Timko, Managing Partner at Xploration Capital. “With this principle, Myos has succeeded in bringing its product to the market and we see its enormous potential for the e-commerce industry”.
By accelerating the growth of its customers, Myos is quickly gaining their trust. To date, the company has supported merchants with over €30M in over 1,000 loans.
“Myos offers an incredibly flexible and fair financing solution that is very beneficial to us as a young company”, says Dennis Meincke, Managing Director of BEMS Ventures. “Thanks to the Myos loans, we were able to grow by almost 500% last year. Without them that would not have been possible.”
The founders started Myos in 2018, bringing business experience from management positions at Morgan Stanley, Allianz, Roland Berger, Lendico/ING, and others. Myos’ shareholders already include Mountain Partners, Berlin Technologie Holding and Avala Capital, as well as business angels from the finance and e-commerce world, among others Ralph Mueller, former member of the board of Deutsche Bank Privat- und Firmenkunden AG.