Finturi, a Dutch start-up using blockchain to help businesses secure loans against invoices, have launched their beta platform after recently raising EUR 2 million from NetSam Participants BV in March 2019. Finturi will bring together selected enterprises and financiers to enable the former to apply for, get approved, and receive loans in 24 hours on their beta platform.

The Hague-based company says that its platform is an example of a viable blockchain use case. “It demonstrates how blockchain technology and artificial intelligence can be used together to help businesses get access to money in a secure, low-cost, quick and easy manner,” Finturi writes in a press release on the beta roll out.

The global alternative finance market is set to grow by USD 472.41 billion between 2018-2022. A key factor of this growth is fast and easy access to credit, which is hard to come by at banks, making the alternative finance market critical in delivering much-needed finance to SMEs.

Johannes Brouwer, CEO of Finturi, gives an overview of the role SMEs play in the EU’s economic landscape and their financing needs:

“Small and medium enterprises account for almost 70% of total employment in the EU-28 non-financial sector. They also generate close to 60% of total gross value added. However, even now, there are SME bank loan financing gaps and the gap is highest in the Netherlands (22% of GDP), followed by Belgium, France and Italy.”

Considering the above, he says that Finturi plans to use the Netherlands as a staging site for expanding operations to other countries.