Lithuanian fintech Softloans has closed a €1 million pre-seed investment round led by FIRSTPICK, as the startup shared with Vestbee.
- Softloans was founded in 2022 by Audrius Griskevicius, Edmundas Kevisas, and Aleksandras Kunickas. The startup develops a platform that offers financing tools, including data collection, analytics, risk assessment, and loan management, to facilitate revenue-based lending for web-based merchants (D2C) and digital service providers (subscription, SaaS, app). Softloans aims to fill the gap between global e-commerce giants and small and medium-sized enterprises.
"The embedded financing tool we have developed works in such a way that the loan can be easily obtained by small and medium-sized businesses on other digital platforms that they use for their activities. The Softloans solution assesses the risks and creditworthiness of any e-shop extremely quickly and accurately. After the loan is issued, the solution constantly monitors the income flows and automatically deducts the agreed percentage for the repayment of the loan” explains Audrius Griškevičius, CEO and co-founder of Softloans.
- In two years of the startup's work, Softloans has acquired around 1,000 corporate clients across Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Netherlands, Finland, and Poland.
- FIRSTPICK is a VC fund and an accelerator for early-stage tech startups across the Baltics. It mainly invests in fintech, SaaS, deeptech, and consumer marketplaces. FIRSTPICK’s portfolio includes 20 startups, with Ama Care, Samphire, and Swotrzy among others. The fund's initial ticket is €50,000-250,000, but it can invest up to €1 million in a single company through follow-on rounds.
"Like all innovations, this one has taken some time to be accepted by partners and customers in the region, but we are already seeing excellent results and are happy to be part of the growth of businesses. We are planning expansion in Lithuania and beyond," says Audrius Griškevičius about the startup’s plans.
