We believe finance expands possibilities
Our story
In 2012 Christoph and James were both working in finance when they noticed that banks had slowed their lending to small businesses. Business owners faced long waits, absurdly rigid criteria, and endless paperwork; back then, the lending system just wasn’t set up for small business.
Christoph and James thought investment should generate choices and opportunities, not anxiety and frustration. So they decided to build a lending service to strip out the hassle and get to know what small businesses need. It’s instant working capital - that’s how the name iwoca was born.
Over the past eight years, we’ve funded tens of thousands of small businesses from cafés to car dealers, salons to solicitors, from the top to the bottom of the country. They use iwoca finance to invest in growth, buy new stock, hire staff, and start new projects. Our goal is to fund a million businesses and we won’t slow down after that.
Custom built for Europe’s small businesses
2011
year founded50,000+
Customers£900,000,000+
in total funding"They understand what growth we need and what potential we have. It’s just a much better way of borrowing."
Charles Burch
EXF Fitness"Very useful, fast and responsive. We were able to apply and draw down our funds within two days."
Tom Hyde
Brew Lab Coffee"A loan from iwoca took one day! Really good service, polite, friendly, and efficient."
Jim O’Brien
The Change GroupOur work for small businesses
We've won £10 million to help British business owners!
The award will help us secure the firepower we need to fund over 150,000 business, and make £5 billion in finance available to them by 2023.
Read articleiwoca reveals plan to fix Government's failing Bank Referral Scheme
For the sake of the UK's 5.7 million small businesses, iwoca CEO and co-founder Christoph Rieche has written a letter to the Chancellor arguing why the Bank Referral Scheme deserves to be fixed.
Read articleWe’re growing our team
We’re now a team of over 200, and we’re looking for motivated people to join us in our mission.
Working at iwoca'Faster than Farah': iwoca takes over 12% of all UK small business overdraft approvals
We've also overtaken Mo Farah's European record with our fastest business loan of 3 minutes and 26 seconds.
Read articleiwoca launches Open Banking with HSBC and Barclays
As we celebrate the end of the year, we're really pleased to connect to Barclays and HSBC through Open Banking. We now offer three Open Banking connections, including Lloyds Bank, so more than 60 percent of our customers can open up to Open Banking.
Read articleScaling up people-friendly fintech
As our new COO, Seema Desai is bringing 18 years of financial and tech experiences into her role at iwoca, helping develop smarter processes for customers and colleagues, encouraging diversity, and enjoying a few mountains on the way.
Read articleiwoca becomes first business lender to connect to UK bank via Open Banking
We've successfully released Open Banking for all new customers with a Lloyds Bank account.
Read article