Luxembourg-based Reech invests €3m in Irish finance platform
Odysseus Investments, Reech's financial services and technology venture capital arm, made the equity investment in Grid Finance.
04.09.2017
Luxembourg-based
Reech Corporations Group has become the largest external shareholder
in Irish finance platform Grid Finance, as the company seeks to expand
internationally.
Odysseus
Investments, Reech's financial services and technology venture
capital arm, has made a €3 million equity investment in the Dublin-based SME
financing and wealth platform.
"This
is a very scalable business with potential to move beyond Ireland
into other markets," said Christophe Reech, founder and principal
of Reech Corporations Group.
Reech, a former derivatives banker, who will
join the Grid Finance board as non-executive director.
Grid
Finance, which provides an online platform to lend to both businesses and individuals, plans to grow the business to more than €1 billion in lending to
25,000 businesses in the coming years, having to date provided financing to 2,000 small
businesses.
It
offers businesses flexible financing including invoice
discounting, leasing and short-term cash flow loans secured against
credit and debit card receivables.
Grid's
other backers include Enterprise Ireland, Kilcullen Kapital Partners,
Kirkcaldy Group, Thiele Capital and Unbent Capital.
Odysseus
is hoping to invest in a number of fintech start-ups to build up an investment portfolio.
It has
also invested in UK-based wealth management firm Moola, which uses
advanced robotic technology to provide a low-cost and user-friendly
way for savers to access high-performing investment products.