{"id":37753,"date":"2023-10-20T14:52:08","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/valiant-finance-ready-to-match-smes-to-lenders-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:52:08","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:52:08","slug":"valiant-finance-ready-to-match-smes-to-lenders-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/valiant-finance-ready-to-match-smes-to-lenders-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Valiant Finance ready to match SMEs to lenders – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

It was a desire to back his own ideas and be directly responsible for a company\u2019s success and failures that led Alex Molloy to make the great leap of faith into the startup world.<\/p>\n

While working in corporate finance, Molloy would sometimes have to wait years to see his ideas in action.<\/p>\n

It was this frustration and lack of control over his ideas and the company\u2019s ultimate successes that led Molloy and his fellow co-founder Richard Cotton, a financial consultant, to quit their stable jobs and dedicate their time to building a startup from the ground up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we both thoroughly enjoyed some of the challenges in those jobs, but fundamentally the big difference in startup land was the excitement of having an idea that\u2019s yours and not someone else, and building it from scratch,\u201d Molloy tells StartupSmart.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cSuccess and failure is riding on how you plan and what you do each day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going public<\/h3>\n

Nearly six months after the pair made this leap, their startup, Valiant Finance<\/a>, has officially launched.<\/p>\n

The startup offers an online platform to help small businesses secure loans with \u201cunprecedented transparency\u201d.<\/p>\n

It matches lending partners to its users through an algorithm. Small businesses answer a series of questions on the site that take \u201cless than five minutes\u201d and Valiant Finance will then \u201cchurn\u201d this information against its lenders\u2019 criteria and match it with those that fit the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about helping a small business get a loan,\u201d Molloy says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be the go-to source for small business when they think about getting funding.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea is based around a well-known saying: \u201cbanks only give you money when you don\u2019t need it\u201d.<\/p>\n

Molloy says it\u2019s all about saving small businesses time and money, and giving them personalised information about the best avenues for loans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a transparent comparison of what the different options are on the market,\u201d Molloy says.<\/p>\n

The process is entirely free for the small businesses, with Valiant Finance taking a commission from the lenders.<\/p>\n

Molloy says convincing lenders to get on board with the concept has been relatively easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of interest in the Australian market both from borrowers and lenders in exploring the non-banking space,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a huge interest in talking to customers and trying to serve them, and everyone is facing the same challenge: getting small businesses through the door. So a service like we\u2019re offering is quite attractive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entire project has been bootstrapped by the two co-founders so far, and Molloy says they will soon be on the hunt for outside investors to help scale and grow the offering.<\/p>\n

From abstract concept to something tangible and \u201cbeautiful\u201d<\/h3>\n

Valiant Finance launched last week, and the co-founders are now working closely with customers to reiterate the platform and gather a wealth of feedback.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can sit in a room and think in the abstract for as long as you like, but nothing beats getting in front of people and seeing how they interact with the different elements,\u201d Molloy says.<\/p>\n

After taking the leap of faith from a stable corporate job to creating a startup from the ground up, for Molloy it was a relief to finally have something to show for his efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019ve got friends and family who trusted you in the decision to leave the job, they get a picture of the product but you can never communicate it perfectly,\u201d Molloy says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re just working on this black box project for five months and your loved ones are looking at it wondering what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we finally have something beautiful and intuitive that we can show them, and everything becomes tangible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you know more on this story or have a tip of your own? Raising capital or launching a startup? Let us know. Follow StartupSmart on <\/i>Facebook<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>Twitter<\/i><\/a>, and <\/i>LinkedIn<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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