Today, Cadence is excited to announce a new strategic partnership with Lendable, a leading structurer of private credit facilities. Lendable supports fintech lenders in pre-frontier, frontier, and emerging markets. They join the Cadence platform as the latest addition to our borrower roster.
Established in 2015, Lendable was founded with the goal of providing debt financing to early and mid-stage fintechs operating in frontier markers, all while giving access to underserved groups in need of crucial financial services. Lendable believes fintech presents a $100 billion opportunity in emerging and frontier markets, and as traditional financial service providers have been reluctant to lend in these jurisdictions (or do so at unaffordable rates), Lendable is capitalizing on this clear market gap in debt financing to early- and mid-stage fintech companies.
Through careful vetting and analysis, Lendable finds the most promising and rapidly growing fintechs that provide solutions to underbanked populations. These are tech-enabled companies that leverage a loan management or core banking system to manage their cashflows. Via their unique integration abilities, data science tools and analytics, Lendable has achieved a market-leading understanding of their client’s asset portfolios. Lendable’s investment process combines in-market origination with deep fundamental credit expertise, powered by quantitative insights, their proprietary data set, and portfolio analytics. Through the life of a facility, Lendable maintains real-time portfolio monitoring and a hands-on approach.
Alex Pirro, a Vice President in the Capital Markets team at Cadence, notes “Our partnership with Lendable is the latest development in Cadence’s continuous goal of partnering with data-driven and tech-enabled non-bank lenders to provide investors with transparent access into private credit, a historically opaque asset class.”
Via our inaugural note with Lendable, investors will gain exposure to a senior secured credit facility to Watu Credit, a provider of motorcycle financing in Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria, supporting sole proprietors in the ridesharing business. As two-wheeled taxis expanded to become one of Africa’s largest employers and economic opportunities, Watu experienced exponential growth and generated consistent net profits since inception in 2015. Watu will be one of the many tech-forward borrowers onboarded via Lendable.
“We’re incredibly excited to launch our partnership with Cadence with the syndication of Watu Credit,” adds Chris Wehbé Executive Chairman of Lendable. “Since Lendable began financing in 2016, we’ve worked to prove that providing debt to emerging market fintechs is a commercially attractive opportunity for international investors. As COVID-19 has made digital financial services a crucial part of sustained economic growth, working with Cadence allows Lendable to scale our debt financings through creating access to our asset class for U.S. accredited investors.”
[This archived post was released at a time when Percent was formerly known as Cadence.]