Advance Global Capital, Invoice Bazaar partner to help SME suppliers

Dubai/London: November21, 2016

Advance Global Capital (AGC), announced the partnership with Invoice Bazaar, a FinTech Supply Chain Finance platform in the United Arab Emirates for offering receivables purchase from SME suppliers. As part of the initial term sheet signed, AGC is committing a capital of AED 4 Million (US$1.1Million) as the first tranche towards purchase of receivables mainly targeted towards the SME segment.

Supply Chain Finance, is a tool commonly used among the global multinational corporations, to provide liquidity and working capital efficiency among their supply chain. Invoice Bazaar is using the same principles to help SME suppliers with their working capital and at the same time helping large buyers to optimize their procurement cycle.

“We found Invoice Bazaar to be a perfect fit under our investment mandate as we have had the experience of working with over a dozen similar platforms in the Americas, Europe and Africa. Invoice Bazaar is our first investment in the Middle East, which is an important milestone in the geographic diversification of our fund” said Nate Hartley, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Advance Global Capital.

Invoice Bazaar has already won mandates from over 30 suppliers as well as 6 buyers in the UAE. Due to an existing pipeline of deals, the funds would be immediately deployed towards receivables purchase. This takes InvoiceBazaar’s total fund raised including equity capital close to US$3 Million and is on track to purchase receivables of US$ 40 Million in its first full year of operations. Invoice Bazaar is expected to break even in its very first year of operations, which ensures that there would be no pressure to further liquidate equity just to meet its working capital needs. “If we get a strategic investor interested, who could offer to open doors with large buyers in the Middle East, that’s when we speak about series-A.” says Anand Nagaraj.

Anand Nagaraj, Founder & CEO of Invoice Bazaar expressed satisfaction at the progress of this start-up. Anand started Invoice Bazaar after almost a decade long career with Citi. He was Senior Vice President and Head of Product for Citi’s Middle East commercial banking business before founding Invoice Bazaar. “SME lending could be perceived risky by banks and hence you find many banks exiting this space. However, Supply Chain Finance and Dynamic Discounting are tools through which you can help solve working capital challenges of SMEs without taking risk on the SME.” said Anand. With regards to the partnership with AGC, Anand said “We are delighted to have the support of an institutional investor of repute like AGC. This is just the beginning and I am sure our relationship with AGC will grow exponentially in the coming months.”

-Ends-

For further inquiries, please contact:
Sougata Das
Invoice Bazaar
Sougata@invoicebazaar.com

Sam Miller Hicks
Advance Global Capital
smillerhicks@advanceglobalcap.com

ABOUT ADVANCE GLOBAL CAPITAL (http://www.advanceglobalcap.com )
Advance Global Capital, Ltd (AGC) is a financial services company based in the UK that focuses on financial inclusion by connecting small and medium-sized businesses in need of working capital with investors who seek commercial rates of return and a positive social impact. AGC takes a centuries old financing tool and overlay expertise in structuring, risk management and financial software to bring global capital to underserved businesses around the world. AGC has partnered with several factoring/supply chain finance platforms across the world including Invoice Bazaar in the Middle East.

ABOUT INVOICE BAZAAR (https://www.invoicebazaar.com )
InvoiceBazaar Forfaiting Services LLC is a Dubai based FinTech start-up which has developed a technology platform through an in-house technology entity, for offering Supply Chain Finance and Dynamic Discounting. Invoice Bazaar’s team has over 50 years of combined work experience across banking and technology in global organizations like Citi, HSBC and Goldman Sachs. The platform provides opportunity for large buyers to help their SME suppliers by having their receivables paid early. The capital for the early payment to suppliers is provided by institutional investors like AGC.