Online small business lender Kabbage has raised $250 million in funding from Japan’s SoftBank Group. The capital, which takes Kabbage’s total funding to more than $488 million, will be used to support new lending products for small businesses, as well as “explor(ing) non-lending products and services” for its customers. The partnership with SoftBank will also likely help as Kabbage looks to expand beyond North America and Europe to markets in Asia.
Kabbage co-founder and CEO Rob Frohwein praised SoftBank’s “scale, global reach, relationships, and unparalleled expertise in building transformative industry leaders.” He emphasized Kabbage’s goal of using “real-time and persistent access to data” to give small businesses a range of financial services and said the partnership with SoftBank would “accelerate” the process. SoftBank Managing Director David Thevenon added, “We invested in Kabbage because their unique automated lending platform leverages open data networks and best positions them to empower small businesses around the world.”
Kabbage uses data generated from a wide range of business activity to help provide small businesses with the funding they need to grow. The company offers a line of credit of up to $150,000, with six and 12-month terms, and provides funding decisions within minutes. Kabbage loans have no origination fees or prepayment penalties, and funds can be accessed online, using Kabbage’s mobile app, or with the Kabbage Card.
Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Kabbage demonstrated its Kabbage Card small business line of credit at FinovateSpring 2015. The company was named to CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list in June, and voted one of the best places to work in the U.S. last year, Kabbage surpassed a major milestone in April, topping $3 billion in funding to more than 100,000 small business customers. The company drives automated lending for three of the biggest 50 global banks by asset size: ING, Santander, and Scotiabank, and maintains 1.5 million live connections to customer data.