Santander InnoVentures leads 35 million euro funding round in pan-European digital debt marketplace CrossLend

Large banking group invests in digital debt marketplace. Source:?shutterstock.com

Santander InnoVentures, Santander Group’s fintech venture capital fund, has announced it is leading the funding round (Series B) of CrossLend, the Berlin-based pan-European digital debt marketplace. The round also includes funding from existing investors Lakestar, ABN AMRO Ventures, and Earlybird.

Founded in 2014, CrossLend provides a digital debt marketplace for consumeк, SME, invoices, mortgages and other forms of debt originated by banks and alternative originators. CrossLend makes the assets available to a wide range of institutional investors, such as banks, investment funds, and insurance companies.

This allows loan originators to expand their origination capacity and increase income while at the same time it helps to reduce pressure from capital requirements. Institutional investors with the need to invest in fixed-income assets are provided with a broad range of new investable assets in a transferable form. This allows more capital to flow into Europe’s economy and makes the lending and investment ecosystem more efficient, transparent and profitable.

Santander InnoVentures’ investment comes as the European Commission’s capital markets union initiative is set to deliver an action plan by the end of 2019 to provide new sources of funding for businesses, reduce the cost of raising capital, increase options for savers across the EU, facilitate cross-border investment and make the EU financial system more stable, resilient and competitive. CrossLend’s digital debt marketplace infrastructure is closely aligned with core elements of previous EU action plans and already enables pan-European fixed-income investment in the absence of a true capital markets union.

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