Swedish lender Froda says Klarna alumni have been key to its growth, as it expands into Ireland, its next new market. The lender, which makes around €60m a year in revenues, offers its white-label embedded lending model in markets beyond Sweden.
Founded in 2015, the direct and embedded lender currently operates in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Norway. Germany, the UK which it entered last year, and now Ireland. While the Irish market is not as big as the UK and Germany, Ireland has around 300,000 SMEs, according to Froda CEO and co-founder Olle Lundin (pictured).
It is entering Ireland by way of a partnership with Treyd, a Swedish trade financing player which provides upfront supplier payments. Froda has a registered Swedish credit institution licence, which it passports across the EU. It offers embedded lending by partnering up with fintechs and payment firms through a single API.
On recruiting Klarna staff, Lundin said:
“They have done a few things really, really well.”
“A lot of people working for Froda in the data and credit departments come from Klarna. From a fintech perspective it's a really good place to find very, very good and talented people.”
Froda, which operates a fully remote model so it doesn’t have physical offices, has around 100 staff in total. Lundin says embedded lending will be a bigger part of its overall lending business moving forward, bigger than the direct lending it offers in its native Sweden.
Its backers include Karl-Johan Persson, the billionaire businessman and chairman of H&M and Victor Jacobsson, a Klarna co-founder. Last year, Froda carried out a €10m fundraise, valuing it around €170m.
Froda has partnerships with the likes of Visa, Lunar and Checkout.com.
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