Dutch-Spanish fintech Twinco Capital has secured €165mn in funding, including a €150mn facility from Santander, as it looks to scale its supplier finance platform.
The investment structure included a €15mn in Series B equity funding, led by the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank (FMO), with participation from Bankinter and existing shareholders Quona Capital and Working Capital Fund.
It also comprised a €150mn securitisation facility led by Banco Santander, dedicated to purchase order finance.
Twinco provides purchase-order-to-payment financing for suppliers, combining proprietary risk intelligence and technology infrastructure to assess supplier performance in real time and channelling liquidity directly to manufacturers from the moment an order is issued.
The fintech advances up to 60% of the purchase order value upfront and pays suppliers the remainder upon delivery. This means it can intervene at the earlier stages of the production cycle before traditional invoice or supply chain finance solutions become available.
The supplier finance solution provider, which in 2023 signed a €50mn debt facility with BBVA’s tech funding arm to support the further growth of its offering, already works with retail giants such as Centric Brands in the US, Lojas Renner in Brazil, Mango in Spain, and Vertbaudet in France.
The latest funding round will allow it to “significantly expand” its capacity to “unlock liquidity for SMEs across global supply chains” as well as enable institutional investors to “gain exposure to low risk, self-liquidating, emerging markets”, it said.
Sandra Nolasco, co-founder and CEO of Twinco Capital, said: “Financing purchase orders at scale requires a completely different risk infrastructure, data model and operational capability.
“The closing of the first purchase order securitisation fund proves that this risk can not only be managed; it can be institutionalised and scaled.”
Legal and regulatory counsel involved in the securitisation transaction included Norton Rose Fulbright, Mayer Brown, finReg360 and Cuatrecasas.
Banco Santander’s global head of trade and working capital solutions, Enrique Rico, said the Twinco transaction represented “an important evolution for the industry by bringing institutional capital into purchase order finance at scale for the first time through a securitisation structure”.
The Series B €15mn cash injection will also allow Twinco to strengthen its global team and invest in product development and technology, including by embedding artificial intelligence into its underwriting and credit decision infrastructure, added Carmen Marin, co-founder and COO.
“Since 2019, Twinco has tested its risk model by financing thousands of transactions with a total value of over US$1bn. It is now developing AI-driven automation layers on top of that model, scaling its breadth and depth,” Marin said.
The women-led company was founded in 2016 by Nolasco and Marin in a bid to build financial infrastructure for more inclusive and sustainable global trade.
It now supports over 300 suppliers across 25 countries, including key sourcing markets such as including Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, India, Turkey and Portugal.
Twinco is backed by venture capital and impact investors including Finch Capital, Mundi Ventures, Quona Capital, Working Capital Fund, and now FMO and Bankinter.
It is dual-headquartered in Amsterdam and Madrid and employs 44 people.
