Cologne/Aachen — The S‑UBG Group is parti­ci­pa­ting with its venture capi­tal fund (S‑VC GmbH) in the second round of finan­cing in the FinTech company entra­fin GmbH, which was foun­ded in 2015. Also inves­t­ing are the foun­ders and mana­ging direc­tors of zeb, a manage­ment consul­tancy specia­li­zing in finan­cial service provi­ders, Prof. Dr. Stefan Kirmße, Prof. Dr. Bernd Rolfes and Dr. Patrick Tege­der, the exis­ting inves­tors Dieter von Holtz­brinck Ventures and the foun­ders and mana­ging direc­tors of entra­fin. “We will use the fresh capi­tal to grow further. Our goal is to give signi­fi­cantly more custo­mers access to our inno­va­tive form of purchase finan­cing. To this end, we are conti­nuously deve­lo­ping our trading plat­form as well as our sales chan­nels,” says Chris­toph Bauer (photo, left of co-foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor Dr. Stefan Fenner), Foun­der and Mana­ging Direc­tor of entra­fin GmbH.

FinTech made in NRW: Inno­va­tive model for liqui­dity opti­miza­tion entra­fin has deve­lo­ped a comple­tely digi­tal plat­form for purchase finan­cing, where suppli­ers are paid in full directly after deli­very and buyers can take advan­tage of a flexi­ble payment term of up to 120 days for them­sel­ves. This crea­tes attrac­tive liqui­dity scope for the compa­nies. In this way, entra­fin meets the growing need of SMEs to be able to use finan­cing in an uncom­pli­ca­ted, fast, and flexi­ble manner precis­ely where it is needed at short notice: at the trading busi­ness itself with its goods and services. “Through future further deve­lo­p­ments, we will like­wise be able to offer our custo­mers a quick and easy connec­tion of their eCom­merce solu­ti­ons to our retail plat­form. In this way, we will also consis­t­ently serve the finan­cing needs directly and digi­tally at the point of sale,” explains Bauer.

Medium-sized company finan­cing in transition
“With its purchase finan­cing model and its inno­va­tive, digi­tal initia­tion and proces­sing, entra­fin GmbH is meeting with high demand in the market,” says Harald Heide­mann, CEO of S‑UBG. “The finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies in Germany is under­go­ing change, and entre­pre­neurs are incre­asingly looking for alter­na­ti­ves to tradi­tio­nal bank loans. There is ther­e­fore simi­lar market poten­tial for purchase finan­cing as there is for the alre­ady estab­lished facto­ring. The total volume of the German facto­ring indus­try alone curr­ently amounts to around 217 billion euros a year and has shown an average year-on-year increase of more than eight percent over the last four years,”[2] Heide­mann continues.

The next mile­sto­nes for entra­fin are ther­e­fore clear: a signi­fi­cant expan­sion of sales in the exis­ting sales chan­nels and the digi­tal deve­lo­p­ment of new market segments through the further deve­lo­p­ment of the trading platform.

About S‑UBG Group:
The S‑UBG Group, Aachen, is the leading part­ner in provi­ding equity capi­tal for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies (S‑UBG AG) and young, tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups (S‑VC GmbH) in the econo­mic regi­ons of Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach. S‑UBG AG invests in growth sectors; high quality of corpo­rate manage­ment is a key invest­ment criter­ion for the invest­ment company. In 1997, the share­hol­der savings banks estab­lished an early-stage fund under S‑VC GmbH to finance start­ups. In 2007, the Seed Fonds I Aachen was added, expan­ding the range to include equity capi­tal for tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups. After it was fully finan­ced, a new fund (Seed Fonds II Aachen) was set up in 2012. The third seed fund gene­ra­tion will start at the begin­ning of 2018. The S‑UBG Group curr­ently has invest­ments in over 40 compa­nies in the region and mana­ges appro­xi­m­ately €100 million. Further infor­ma­tion: www.s‑ubg.de

About FinTech Funds:
Dieter von Holtz­brinck Ventures (DvH Ventures) is one of the leading early-stage inves­tors in Europe and invests in tech­no­logy-orien­ted start­ups that deve­lop disrup­tive products and services — from FinTech, Insur­Tech and Big Data to arts and culture, from educa­tion and trai­ning to mobile adver­ti­sing. As an inde­pen­dent venture capi­tal fund, DvH Ventures invests with capi­tal, manage­ment support as well as the charisma of strong brands and large reach of the jour­na­li­stic heavy­weights Handels­blatt, Wirt­schafts­Wo­che, Tages­spie­gel and DIE ZEIT. The manage­ment is formed by Peter Rich­arz and Fabian von Trotha. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.dvhventures.de

About entra­fin:
entra­fin is a FinTech for purchase finan­cing specia­li­zed in SMEs. entra­fin offers its B2B custo­mers a digi­tal finan­cing alter­na­tive for their working capi­tal that is faster, easier, and usually chea­per than the house bank. Custo­mers can initiate and settle trading tran­sac­tions with their suppli­ers in real time via the entra­fin digi­tal trading plat­form — entra­fin pays the suppli­ers’ invoice imme­dia­tely after deli­very and grants the custo­mer a payment term of up to 120 days. The traded goods serve as colla­te­ral. Further infor­ma­tion: www.entrafin.de