By Padraic Halpin
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish fintech Wayflyer has renewed a $300 million debt line with J.P. Morgan, a step it said underscores the security of its finance base as clients focus more on the source of revenue-based lenders' funds after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
Wayflyer, which provides e-commerce firms with unsecured working capital for an upfront fee and a slice of future sales, said reliability was a much bigger factor since the failure of startup-focused lender Silicon Valley Bank left billions of dollars belonging to companies and investors stranded.
"Last year, it was very much around what's the price? One of the questions we often get asked right now is what's your funding base and obviously this gives us a huge advantage," Chief Executive Aidan Corbett told Reuters in an interview.
"I don't think this was as big a deal pre-Silicon Valley Bank."
The mainly U.S. focussed startup raised more than $550 million in debt from J.P. Morgan and Credit Suisse (SIX:CSGN) last year, on top of $150 million in equity financing that valued the company at $1.6 billion in February 2022.
Corbett declined to disclose the new terms but said that while all debt is now more expensive, the renewed line likely gives Wayflyer the most competitive cost base in the market. No further debt raising plans are on the horizon, he added.
Wayflyer said on Wednesday that it has provided over $2 billion to online retailers since it was founded 2019, 60% of which was deployed in the last 12 months.
However, it fell short of its target of lending $2-2.5 billion in 2022 alone. Corbett said deteriorating macroeconomic conditions forced it to take a more conservative stance in the second half of the year.
Wayflyer cut its workforce by 40% to 300 last November in response, but continues to operate in 12 markets. One of its main competitors, SoftBank-backed Clearco, stepped back from Europe last year.
Wayflyer's revenue is up around 30% year-on-year so far in 2023, Corbett said, with demand in the U.S. "still extremely strong."