CapitalBox, the leading fintech lender for small- and medium-sized enterprises in Europe, has appointed Sicco Goede as its new Country Manager for the Netherlands. With his extensive experience in the financial sector and proven track record, Goede will play an essential role in driving regional growth and establishing CapitalBox as the most dynamic financing partner for Dutch SMEs.

Goede brings with him more than a decade of experience in banking, including as a corporate lender at ABN Amro and ING. His entrepreneurial skills came to fruition when he started a secondment business in 2000, focused on the employment mediation and pension market. Goede further distinguished himself as a versatile professional with his experience as Head of Partner Sales & Marketing at Together Finance and as Commercial Director of the Dutch branch of Novicap, of which he was a founding employee. 

Goede sees his role as the Netherlands Country Manager as a unique opportunity to combine the skills and experience gleaned over the last decade-plus of his professional life, and he’s excited about this new challenge: "I’ve long admired CapitalBox's management team and their determination to grow rapidly and meaningfully. SMEs are more dependent than ever on alternative financing in this unprecedented climate of post-pandemic rebuilding, widespread talent shortages, and destabilising inflation. SMEs are often considered too risky by banks, which fail to see how fast, personalised lending combined with automated AI risk assessments significantly reduces risk and creates an ideal lending situation for everyone. I’m thrilled to be part of a team that genuinely comprehends the opportunities here, and that is so eager to support Dutch SMEs."

CapitalBox was founded in Finland and now operates across Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania and the Netherlands. At a time when traditional banks are increasingly focusing on larger business loans, CapitalBox is fully committed to growth. The SME lending gap is fast approaching 400 billion euros, and big banks see little incentive to address this. CapitalBox, however, distinguishes itself from the stodgy M.O. of traditional finance institutions with a fast turnaround of financing requests and well-thought-out risk assessments that look beyond annual figures without taking extra processing time. These include balance sheet columns, bank balances, and cash flow patterns. Because SMEs nearly always have this data immediately available, CapitalBox is able to provide business loans at little risk in as short as a few hours.

With the security of Multitude Group's EU banking licence and innovative products and ideas in hand, CapitalBox is quickly establishing itself as a new power player in the market. CapitalBox's forward-looking roadmap includes streamlining processes in the Netherlands under Goede’s leadership and expanding the Dutch team, as well as initiatives targeting the broader European market through product innovations.