• Fasanara Capital provides €30 million debt facility to German B2B fintech Tilta

• The facility will allow Tilta to scale its credit-backed payment infrastructure for B2B marketplaces and merchants

• Rising interest rates, persistent inflationary pressures, and tighter lending criteria pose a major problem for business transactions

• Tilta’s embedded white-label solution solves the problem by providing buyers with payment terms of up to 90 days and paying out sellers immediately

• The announcement comes just 4 months after the fintech launched its platform and closed a €4 million seed round

The debt facility will enable Tilta to finance approximately €250 million in business-to-business (B2B) transactions per year. The German fintech is providing much-needed payment terms to buyers and immediate, risk-free payouts to sellers – making purchasing as seamless and efficient as shopping for sneakers online.

“We are thrilled to partner with Fasanara to provide access to a previously inaccessible asset class of short-term, small ticket, and highly liquid B2B receivables,” says Tilta co-founder Christoph Nicola.

E-commerce has upended the way private consumers shop, with groceries or a new shirt just a few mouse clicks away. But Europe’s €1.1 trillion B2B market remains painfully analog. Around half of the transactions are still done via telephone, fax, or meetings with sales representatives, costing companies time and money.

The offline world has come up with remedies such as letter of credit, trade credit, credit insurance, or purchasing facilities to create trust and solve liquidity issues both on the sellers’ and buyers’ side. Unfortunately, those solutions haven’t extended to the digital point of sale. Small businesses often have no way to finance purchases other than reaching out to a bank for a credit line – a process that at best is time-consuming and at worst can fail.

Rising interest rates and inflation have exacerbated the situation, leading to more payment delays and increasing demand for longer payment terms, pressure on businesses’ operating cash flows, and reduced access to credit for SMEs as banks are tightening their lending criteria in 2023.

“With 1 in 4 businesses having to close because of liquidity constraints, the working capital gap remains the key challenge for SMEs in Europe,” Nicola says.

Tilta’s credit-backed payments infrastructure is aimed at solving this problem. It enables B2B merchants and marketplaces to offer their customers in-context purchase financing. The white-label solution works via a single API integration that covers all aspects of a transaction, including seamlessly working technology, the proper regulatory framework, access to capital, and the hedging of risk.

Businesses ordering on a marketplace get an individual line of credit that can be used seamlessly and transparently, with the option to pay via instalments or after 30, 60, or 90 days. Sellers on the marketplace receive their sales proceeds immediately and risk-free. The marketplaces benefit from a major value-add for their customers while being able to monetize a financial service, introducing a new revenue stream to bolster their usually tight margins.

Fasanara Capital CEO Francesco Filia says: “In today’s challenging macroeconomic environment, it’s essential that there are in-context financing solutions available that can support the transition of B2B transactions from offline to online and solve the inherent working capital gap”.

“We have been impressed with the Tilta Team, their tech-driven white-label approach to embedded credit risk assessment and financing of business transactions and their progress so far. We are happy to partner with them in closing the working capital gap for SMEs in online business transactions,” Filia says.

The debt facility reflects another major milestone for Tilta in 2023, less than 4 months after launching and announcing their €4 million seed round.

About Tilta

Tilta is a German Fintech providing the embedded purchase finance solution for digital B2B transactions. Launched in 2022 and backed by leading Venture Capital investors and Fintech Angels, Tilta offers marketplaces and e-commerce platforms the end-to-end infrastructure for building credit-backed payment flows and closing the working capital gap for their customers. Tilta was founded by experienced fintech entrepreneurs Enno Einfeld, Christoph Nicola, Ingmar Stupp, and is home to 15 more industry experts – all on the common mission to change how businesses do business. www.tilta.io

About Fasanara Capital

Founded in 2011, Fasanara Capital is an independent, owner-managed, alternative asset manager authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. With $4 billion under management and 200+ employees across London (HQ), Milan, and others, Fasanara is a pioneer and global market leader in fintech investing, and tech-enabled receivables financing.