FRENNS, factoring start-up, has recently launched its service for SMEs. Backed by two experienced finance professionals, the start-up differs by a genuine will to help small businesses, powered by a fully automated process making the trade faster and less expensive. This month, they officially launched their solution on the British and Dutch markets.

The London-based company offers an invoice financing to small businesses and a secure way to invest for invoice investors. Thanks to a high automation level, the start-up is able to deliver cash to its customers within an hour after request, from three digits to significant amounts.

The project started 10 years ago, when Per Frennbro, CEO-founder, had a company but could not get cash easily. His business had to pay huge interests for invoice financing, even though the process was long and inadequate. Reflecting on this experience, he designed an invoicing system adapted to the needs of SMEs in need for cash. The anti-selection process, to sort good and bad invoices, is therefore done automatically thanks to a digital automation process. As a consequence, the company can operates with reduced costs on numerous markets.

FRENNS’ governing principle is to help underserved businesses, as ‘friends’: across the first five countries selected for their operations, there are ten million enterprises. Out of those, only 145 000 companies are deemed good enough to use invoice financing. To help these SMEs is the pillar of their corporate culture, in addition to the dynamism and flexibility proper to start-ups. Typically, those targeted businesses count between one and ten employees, with business models featuring tangible assets, such as manufacturing, construction or wholesale. The team aims in fine to reach the global European market, starting with the UK, the Netherlands, then Germany and Scandinavia. On a larger scale, the company received a big interest from Asian countries.

Behind FRENNS are two finance professionals. Per Frennbro, designer of the technology powering the solution, translated the regulations as well as his tech and financial experience into the system. The company’s co-founder, COO/CFO Tassos Anastasiou, uses his insurance and finance background to manage their activity. Thanks to this invoicing experience, the team can tackle the challenges of the markets.

Indeed, FRENNS displays a huge analytical engine and a strong knowledge of credit scoring. The significance of automation in their invoicing process provides them with a considerable potential, allowing to be continuously connected with the financial situation of their customers. Rapidity, efficiency and lower costs ensue: to ensure reasonable fees, their interest rate setting is based on an auction system.

Holland FinTech and FRENNS are partners since two years. Since then, they used the support of our network, such as the Dutch regulator AFM, to complete their project; the opportunity to approach a vast network and gain insights motivates the company to maintain collaboration between the two organisations.