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Silvr Founders Greg Tappero and Nima Karimi | Image credit: Silvr

Paris-based Silvr, a fintech startup that claims to reinvent the way entrepreneurs get funded, announced on Tuesday that it has raised €130M in its Series A round of funding. 

The startup says that the round, which was a mix of €18M equity and €112M debt, was one of the largest fundraising operations in the Revenue Based Financing (RBF) sector in Continental Europe. 

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Besides the funding, Silvr also announced the upcoming creation of its own debt fund as well as strategic partnerships with banking players in 2022.

Investors in this round

The Series A round was led by XAnge, Otium, Bpifrance, Eurazeo, ISAI, and business angels such as Alexandre Prot and Steve Anavi (co-founders of Qonto), Raphaël Vullierme (co-founder of Luko), Louis Chatriot (co-founder of Alma) and Pierre Dutaret (co-founder of Libeo).

Cyril Bertrand, Managing Partner at XAnge, says, “The RBF challenge is exciting: it is about lending to companies without taking collateral on their assets (unlike bank loans or venture debt) and without interfering with the billing flows (unlike factoring). Silvr solves this equation with the agility of its proprietary technology – by verifying in real time that the loan is having a virtuous impact on growth and new customer acquisition.”

Capital utilisation

Silvr claims that the raised funds will be used to recruit a further 100 employees in 2022 to support increased growth and further develop its platform. Currently, the company has around 20 employees.

CEO and co-founder of Silvr, Nima Karimi, says, “This new fundraise reinforces our vision and ambition: to contribute to the growth of the digital economy in Europe thanks to our unique financing platform. We will be able to accelerate our development thanks to the recruitment of around a hundred employees, set the first milestones in the creation of our own debt fund and develop technological partnerships with banks.”

The company had raised €3M in its Seed round in 2021 and has already financed more than 100 companies, including Pixpay, Cuure, Poiscaille, Lovys, and Partoo.

Revenue-based financing model

Founded in 2020 by serial entrepreneurs Nima Karimi and Grégory Tappero, Silvr finances e-businesses that can’t access bank loans and are looking to raise equity capital. It aims to help entrepreneurs succeed. 

“It is essential for them to be able to access funds easily to accelerate the growth of their business, without having to pay onerous counterparties,” says Silvr in a statement. The startup’s platform is adaptable to all digital business models, including SaaS, subscription model, e-commerce, mobile apps, etc.

Financing offers are calculated using a model developed by the startup to assess the performance of companies and their growth potential. This is done by analysing thousands of complex data such as single visitors, turnover, average basket, return on ad spends of paid media campaigns, attrition rates, etc. as well as industry-specific data. 

This system allows the fintech company to forecast the company’s future revenues and provide the necessary financing within 24 hours.

Karimi says, “As an entrepreneur for the past decade, I have been faced several times with the complexity of financing my startups. Banks are reluctant to grant bank loans to digital companies that do not have assets to provide as collateral. The complex and time-consuming journey of raising equity funds concerns only a handful of companies. I founded Silvr to democratise RBF in Europe, promote fairer access to capital and allow tens of thousands of entrepreneurs who create tomorrow’s services to unlock their growth potential.”

In a statement, the startup mentioned that, on average, companies financed by Silvr saw 64 per cent growth two months after their financing, 99 per cent of customers financed by Silvr refinance with Silvr, 29 per cent of the startup’s financing is granted to companies created by women, and 35 per cent of companies financed are also supported by venture capital investors.