Singapore-based marketplace lending company iLex has secured a $4.5m investment, which was led by QBN Capital.

The funds will help iLex accelerate its product roadmap and client acquisition across Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East and Africa, according to a report from Technode Global.

Capital will also be used to hire more staff.

iLex designs, builds and operates public and private market infrastructure for syndicated loan and private debt markets. Its digital solutions and strategic partnerships ensure its platforms are connected, collaborative, scalable and adaptive to multiple loan distribution channels, it claims.

 It has three core product lines. These are iLex Market, which helps connect players with counterparties and deal opportunities through an augmented network, iLex Digital, which lets users manage their deals end-to-end, and iLex Analytics, which offers aggregated market intelligence.

Speaking on the funding round, iLex CEO and founder Bertrand Billon said, “The ongoing volatile market conditions and banks’ pressure on margins call for greater liquidity and efficiency in loan capital markets.

“This year, our objective is to bring iLex’s secondary trading platform to maturity and expand our primary syndication solutions to deliver our vision of the all-in-one next-gen distribution platform for primary, secondary and private credit markets that is connected, collaborative and secured.”

With the close of the round, the company has raised a total of $8.5m in funding. It previously closed its seed funding round in 2020 on an undisclosed amount. Investors to the round were not revealed but they came from France, Hong Kong, Singapore and the US.

Another Singaporean FinTech company to recently raise capital is Pilon. The company raised $5.2m in a debt and equity round in January, with Wavemaker Partners leading the round.

Pilon enables southeast Asian SME suppliers and their corporate buyers to digitise their factoring processes.