What happened: Swedish Froda has announced a $23 million Series B funding round (TechCrunch). The company offers a direct-to-business lending product, as well as embedded lending, which enables fintech companies and non-financial brands to provide lending products for their own SME customers.
My comment: If you regularly read Embedded Finance Review, you are aware that Europe already has several Embedded Lending providers, including Banxware (Germany), Finmid (Germany), Liberis (UK), Youlend (UK) and many more. Many of these players target the biggest European markets, such as Germany or the UK. They aim to expand to all of Europe at some point. Still, it's challenging, and the Nordics can be particularly tough: four key countries, but each is relatively small (only Sweden has more than 10 million inhabitants), and each country has its own currency. This often results in a local fintech player having a time advantage and the potential to grow to a significant size before players from other countries can enter the market. In this case, it appears that Froda is expanding before many of its competitors target the Nordic countries, as Froda mentions the UK, Germany, and Ireland as countries with a local presence, in addition to the Nordics. So far, Froda only lists fintech companies as customers (Mimo, Lunar, and Kontist), but they are likely also targeting non-financial platforms, marketplaces, and similar providers. It will be interesting to see how they can compete outside of the Nordics and in what category their first non-financial brand customer falls.
