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● ArK secures additional €100 million - bringing the total capital pool to €400 millionaccessible to European founders and tech startups.
● ArK introduces a new type of loans up to €10 million, completely non-dilutive, up to 3year interest only, and 7 year repayment time - all made possible through the frontier ingrowth forecasting - AIM (ArK Intelligence Machine).
● ArK’s AIM helps founders track their path towards profitability via generating 5-year cashposition forecasts daily.
● The German team will be headed up by the experienced Mariam Koorang, who recentlylaunched the Canadian E-commerce lender, Clearco, in the market.
With today's launch, ArK Kapital introduces a new model for German founders and tech companies to grow their business, offering access to non-dilutive loans and access to world class growth forecasting via AIM Founders simply plug into ArK’s machine learning platform with all their growth related accounts and in return get access to a detailed 5-year forecast - from which they can access customized funding. ArK’s financial product suite gives access to a transformative, large growth loan that spans between €1-€10 million, lasting up to seven years, with repayments not starting for two-to-three years, completely non-dilutive.
“We’re happy to bring something new, plus access to more capital, to the German tech ecosystem. And given the current macro trends pressuring founders companies to redraw their playbooks and establish a path toward profitability we believe the timing couldn’t be better.”, says Henrik Landgren, co-founder and CPTO at ArK Kapital. “Since the founding of ArK Kapital, we’ve seen a growing need for access to capital offered on founders' terms, with longer repayment periods, flexibility outside traditional equity rounds, and as a complement to venture capital.”
2023 continues to see a distinct decline in the flow of venture capital into the German tech market. While early seed and series A rounds have been less impacted, later stage tech companies have seen VC investment drop by 56% YoY compared to 2021, the same number for all of Europe is down by as much as 46% for Series C and later stage funding, according to data from Dealroom.
In the current financial climate, the credit market has historically been closed off for early stage tech companies, as banks haven’t been able to properly risk assess companies with not-yet profitable growth. With ArK’s always-connected approach to underwriting it's now possible to bridge the gap between the credit market and the startup community - opening the way for more companies to secure access to funding from a sizeable larger pool compared to only venture capital.
“In Germany, the concept non-dilutive loans to extend runway, optimize for future growth, or master the shift to profitability is still fairly untapped, at least compared to markets like the U.K, a market which historically been responsible for the disproportionate share of debt financing.”, says Mariam Koorang, General Manager for Germany at ArK Kapital. “I’ve seen the pain points of raising capital up close, and finally there's an unbiased and data-driven alternative to securing access to capital. This means more German tech companies can fuel their future growth, especially in between rounds.”
In record time, ArK Kapital has seen significant demand in the Nordic region for its financial products and frontier growth forecasting platform and is planning on further market expansions in 2023. The team is backed by no less than seven unicorn founders and a German banking veteran - Frank Strauß, formerly Deutsche Bank and Deutsche Postbank Group, Hjalmar Winbladh of Epidemic Sound and founding partner of EQT Ventures, Jacob De Geer of IZettle, Timo Soininen of Small Giant Games, Ilkka Paananen of Supercell, Sebastian Knutsson of King, Riccardo Zacconi of King, and Steve Anavi of Qonto.
To learn more about ArK Kapital and our founder–friendly and non-dilutive loans, powered by the unrivaled growth forecasting platform AIM, head over to www.arkkapital.com.
