SF Holdings Company Plc, parent of MCC SimpleFinance LLC (“SimpleFinance” or the “Company”), a fintech platform providing accessible lending to small and medium-sized Russian businesses, has completed a USD 15 million equity fundraising round with an investment from the SBI Group (“SBI”).

The investment is SBI’s largest minority investment to date in a Russian company. SBI first invested in SimpleFinance in September 2017; including debt financing, the Group’s total capital commitment to the Company now stands at nearly USD 50 million following deal close. This new investment will allow SimpleFinance to further enhance its cutting-edge technology platform and to continue rapid and profitable lending portfolio growth. Since it was founded in 2015, B2B micro-lending platform’s portfolio growth has been extraordinary: expected CAGR from 2016 to 2018 is approximately 500%. Thanks to a highly scalable origination strategy and exemplary risk management technology, SimpleFinance has achieved a strong ROE in the first half of 2018, while maintaining an excellent track record in terms of loan quality. Alexey Basenko, SimpleFinance CEO, said: “We are extremely pleased that SBI shares our excitement about SimpleFinance model and growth potential. We have already put to work our unique lending platform backed by proprietary technology. By creating products tailored to the needs of small and medium-sized businesses in Russia, we have been able to rapidly expand our lending portfolio, which more than doubled in 2017 and is forecast to double again in 2018 thanks to SBI support”.

SimpleFinance raised external capital for the first time in June 2017, with a USD 30 million Eurobond issuance. (The bond has three-year tenor and annual coupon rate of 10.5%.) Three months later, in September, the SBI Group made its first investment in the Company during its first-round equity raise.

Following this fundraising round, SimpleFinance intends to appoint its first independent non-executive directors to the Board of Directors in order to further strengthen the Company’s corporate governance practices.