Startup lender Kashcade banks $5.5 million raise

Fintech Kashcade, a digital lender offering startup founders non-dilutive capital, has raised $5.5 million and it seeks to build out its loan book.

The round was led by Prandium Capital, with MD Andrew Whitten, now chairing the Kashcade board. Several startup founders also backed the raise, a combo of $1 million in equity and the remainder in debt.

Launched this year, Kashcade funded 14 deals in its first nine months. Most loans sat at around $250,000, offered to technology companies with $1-10 million in annual revenue. ASX-listed Mad Paws Holdings (ASX:MPA) was one of its biggest clients, taking on a $1 million facility that was arranged in less than 48 hours.

The fintech was cofounded by former Apple software engineer Patrick Nappa and ex -CBA lending strategist Alex Simmons, the CEO.

Simmons said that equity capital has always been expensive and hard to raise for early-stage companies, especially recently, and while there are other options for non-dilutive capital, they tend to be slow and cumbersome.

“We built the platform after seeing how long and painful the capital raising process was for founders,” he said.

“Now, with Kashcade, founders can raise funds in just a few clicks.”

The Kashcade software integrates with a startup’s financial systems, such as Xero, their banking and Stripe, to collect and analyse a company’s data instantly.

Cofounder Patrick Nappa said they designed the software so it delivers a range of financial analytics insights to founders that would otherwise be time-consuming and difficult to calculate, such as growth rates, capital efficiency and  trends in customer value.

“Our software can do so much more than simply provide funds quickly,” he said.

“By leveraging the same data used to make funding decisions, we can share with founders an in-depth view of their business’performance without them going to any real effort. This completely  revolutionises how companies engage with their finance provider.

Prandium Capital’s Andrew Whitten said they invested to back a new solution to a longstanding problem.

“Capital is hard to find, and most  ounders lose a huge amount of time to fundraising,” he said.

“With their expertise in finance and tech, the Kashcade founders are breaking down that barrier by building a simple, data-driven platform that allows founders to access non-dilutive capital fast.”