{"id":38652,"date":"2023-10-20T14:58:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/sydney-startup-bigstone-raises-3-million-only-six-weeks-after-launching-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:58:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:58:00","slug":"sydney-startup-bigstone-raises-3-million-only-six-weeks-after-launching-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/sydney-startup-bigstone-raises-3-million-only-six-weeks-after-launching-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney startup Bigstone raises $3 million only six weeks after launching – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sydney-based fintech Bigstone has closed a $3 million funding round less than two months after its two-sided small business lending marketplace was officially launched.<\/p>\n

The funding round was led by ASX-listed private equity and venture capital firm CVC Limited, with the founders of Bangkok-based Lighthouse Venture Partners and a group of private investors also participating.<\/p>\n

Bigstone aims to provide loans to small businesses more transparently and at a more competitive rate, and founder and CEO Boyd Pederson says its global potential helped to attract the investors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe offer a really simple, fast and fair loan product to small businesses,\u201d Pederson tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we can provide a better, more reliable risk-adjusted rate of return for investors who can assemble something that\u2019s extremely low risk and earn double digit returns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe build trust and we\u2019re building a marketplace enabled by trust. This is a global need and our investors have been really excited by what we\u2019ve built.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bigstone team also helped to convince the investors, CVC Limited CEO Sandy Beard says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe leadership team of Bigstone is what first excited us about this opportunity,\u201d Beard says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not often you find a team as strong and committed to a long-term goal as this, with the necessary experience to successful execute their strategies.<\/p>\n

\u201cBigstone has huge potential as an industry disruptor and we\u2019re looking forward to partnering with Boyd and the team as they look at the next stage of growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the starting line<\/h3>\n

The Bigstone platform officially launched six weeks ago, and Pederson says the market reception so far has been \u201cfantastic\u201d.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve just reached the starting line and in that period we\u2019ve delivered quite a few loans and on-boarded a large number of customers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur aim is to deliver $10 million in loans in our first year and we\u2019re on track for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The founder says that the cash injection will be used to add fuel to the startup\u2019s growth plans through growing the team, extending the channel partner network and further building out the tech platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is that the thing we build works really well,\u201d Pederson says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to make sure that the majority of small businesses, who are the big job creators, are enabled to get a rate at a price that is highly customised and fixed in a way that banks can\u2019t deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n

Global ambitions<\/h3>\n

For other budding founders, Pederson says it\u2019s crucial to take things slow and test the waters.<\/p>\n

\u201cFind something you think is a really big problem that nobody has solved and you believe you have the ability to solve, then take it one step at a time,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

With the funding in the bank, he says it\u2019s now all about building a globally successful business.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to share the value we create on both sides of the transaction \u2013 the borrowers and the lenders,\u201d Pederson says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take a small piece of the pie so we need to be a really big business, and that\u2019s our intent.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sydney-based fintech Bigstone has closed a $3 million funding round less than two months after its two-sided small business lending<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38652"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}