Scayl, a debt financing platform founded by ex-VC, fintech and senior financial services executives, announced its emergence from stealth having raised €100 million which it will immediately make available for European Fintech lenders. Dubbed a “fintech for fintech Lenders”, Scayl provides fintechs building credit products with access to transparent funding structures, allowing them to fund their loan books with more flexibility, and 10 times faster than negotiating directly with banks and credit funds.
Previously involved in raising, investing and sourcing billions of euros to fund SME and consumer loans, Medjit Yalmaz, Patrik Blomdahl, and Jatin Goyal, a team of ex-VC, private credit, and fintech lending professionals founded Scayl in 2023, having seen the challenges fintech lenders faced when raising debt. By creating a funding product and technology platform built exclusively for fintech lenders, Scayl is hyper-focused on addressing the lack of flexible and cost-efficient debt financing currently available to these companies.
Europe’s worsening macro-economic environment, higher base rates and rising risk of defaults have created an increasingly challenging environment for Fintech lenders to operate in. This unique combination of obstacles has put pressure on the unit economics of lenders, forcing them to find more flexible and cost-efficient funding – so that they can continue to take advantage of the large market opportunity left open by incumbent banks.
“There is a 400 billion euro funding gap in Europe alone, and it will be fintechs, not banks, taking advantage of the opportunity. By supporting these fintechs and helping them fill this gap we expect to facilitate the growth of many unicorns for years to come, and we’re extremely excited by that,” commented Medjit Yalmaz, CEO and Co-founder of Scayl.
Allowing fintech lenders to seamlessly connect to its platform, Scayl maintains integrations to, and receives funding from, banks and other credit institutions, meanwhile feeding and retrieving all the necessary data required to assess borrowers and facilitate the funding of loans. The company has developed technology that allows for real-time monitoring of 10,000x more data points and uses AI-enabled risk modelling, rather than traditional approaches currently taken by financiers. Scayl’s product links an ever-growing stable of fintech lenders with a pool of financing partners interested in exposure to SME and consumer credit – allowing fintechs that build credit products to quickly fund their loan book without needing to conduct lengthy negotiations with banks or other credit institutions.
Based on the team’s existing network of banks and fintechs, the company already has interest from nearly 100 lenders across Europe with a total demand of more than €1bn. The company has also secured a partnership with a northern European bank to start providing funding for fintech lenders. Scayl will be making these funds available to lenders through its platform.
“When I worked as a debt investor, I would send out term sheets to fintech lenders requiring warrants corresponding to upwards of 10% of businesses. I saw first-hand the endless hidden fees and 6-12 month timelines it took to negotiate and structure debt before founders got the capital they needed. The process wasn’t very friendly, but it continues to be market standard. With Scayl, we listened to what fintech lenders said they really needed, and built a platform that allows us to provide them with debt capital more efficiently, at lower costs, and on founder friendly terms – we think of ourselves as a fintech for fintech lenders. We exist to allow them to focus on what they do best – providing European SMEs and consumers with innovative financial products,” Medjit added.
Scayl has taken the first major step to creating a network of banks and credit institutions, connected by their platform. The company’s focus is now on adding additional banks and rapidly building a broad network of institutions capable of financing loans originated by fintechs in every asset class, and across every credit product and jurisdiction in Europe, before it expands into other regions.
