Vision: Power $1 Trillion in Loans for Small Businesses
We started LendLedger early last year to power lending marketplaces for small businesses facing a massive shortfall in credit.
Since then, we’ve devised and designed this on a Stellar ledger, begun recording working capital loans daily in India on a test chain, and partnered with The Smart Campaign and the Responsible Finance Forum to ensure LendLedger is a force for responsible lending.
Now we’re ready to power $1 trillion in loans for small businesses over the next 10 years. Here are just some of the exciting applications we’ve started working on in recent weeks:
Working capital loans
In the past two years LendLedger’s sister company Happy has financed over $20 million worth of loans to small businesses in India by partnering with data sources such as Mswipe and Flipkart. Using blockchain technology to expand this model globally, LendLedger offers funders, borrowers and data providers unique opportunities for expansion. To learn more click here.
Merchant cash advance (MCA)
Merchant cash advance funders in the United States give small business owners quick funds by buying rights to their future sales. However, MCA funds are expensive, in part due to the high cost of originating them via brokers. And when they go bad, they can heavily penalize “borrowers” due to asset seizures and disputes among multiple funders. LendLedger is exploring a more efficient and transparent marketplace that may incorporate data from payment processors, make broker and lender reputations visible, and ultimately allow customer history to help unlock lower cost funding. If you’re an MCA funder looking to revolutionize your business let us know!
Invoice and supply chain financing
Many projects aim to use blockchain to track assets or commodities across a supply or distribution chain. LendLedger is developing a standard marketplace through which these assets or goods may be financed across that chain. Opportunities underway include:
- helping a large manufacturer in Asia obtain finance for small parts suppliers
- identifying how coffee and other commodity production may be financed against purchase orders
- unlocking data on petrol distributors to enable lenders to make more financing available and more quickly
In all cases, by standardizing loan applications and credit data for a marketplace of lenders, and by using blockchain for tracking and transparency, we hope to expand the availability of this finance.
Financing rooftop solar
Commercial and industrial MSMEs are recognizing the value of supplementing or substituting grid power with less costly, more reliable on-site energy via rooftop solar installations. EPC (engineering, procurement, construction) firms who install these systems identify interested clients but often need to help them secure financing. LendLedger envisions gradually building up an open, standardized, marketplace in which EPCs could share client data / financing applications and connect with lenders to solve the search for viable financing.
