ArK Kapital has announced that it has raised $15 million in acceleration round funding led by Annika Falkengren, formerly the CEO of the Swedish bank SEB for 12 years.
Other investors include Jacob de Geer (founder of Paypal-acquired fintech iZettle), Ilkka Paananen (CEO of gaming company Supercell), (former founding partner of EQT Ventures) Hjalmar Winbladh, Patrick Söderlund (founder of Embark Studios) and new investor Timo Soininen of Zynga-acquired mobile gaming company Small Giant Games.
Today it’s announcing a follow-on raise of $15m at a valuation three times higher than it had at its seed round six months ago. In total the startup has raised $30m in equity and says it now has €300m available to lend to startups.
Henrik Lendgren said, ” This money utilised to spend on enhancing our capacity to onboard more clients”.
Founded in 2021 by Axel Bruzelius, Henrik Landgren, and Oliver Hildebrandt, Sweden-based Fintech Startup, Ark Capital is a precision financing company that empowers technology businesses to grow faster.
What does ArK Kapital do differently
ArK Kapital offers loans of €1 million to €10 million to European startups, with terms based on future revenue projections. ArK’s loans can last up to seven years, unlike most debt providers. Repayments don’t begin for two or three years.
Unlike revenue-based financing (RBF) startups, which predominantly lend to SaaS and ecommerce companies, offering capital in return for a percentage of future sales, ArK plans to work with all kinds of early-stage tech companies that have high growth potential but aren’t yet profitable.
Venture debt can be an attractive complement to VC funding because, unlike VC, it doesn’t require giving away ownership of the business.