Drip Capital Raises $175M to Build a Tech-Enabled Global Trade Facilitation Platform

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Oct 28, 2021, 10:00 ET

PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Drip Capital, Inc. (Drip Capital), a leading digital cross-border trade finance platform for small and medium businesses (SMBs), announces that it has raised $175 million in fresh capital to power its next phase of growth. Funds raised include a $40 million Series C investment and $135 million in warehouse debt facilities. To date, with this fundraise, Drip Capital has raised about $525 million in equity and debt funding.

Pushkar Mukewar, CEO and Co-founder, Drip Capital

San Francisco-based TI Platform led the Series C investment round alongside participation from new and existing investors, including Accel, Sequoia, Wing VC, Irongrey, and GC1 Holdings. The new capital also includes a $100 million warehouse credit facility with Barclays Investment Bank (Barclays) and a $35 million increase in the existing facility (initially $40M) with East West Bank (EWB).

Founded in 2016, Drip Capital aims to solve the $3 trillion global trade finance gap. The company leverages machine learning and cloud technology to finance cross-border transactions, allowing SMBs to free up working capital and invest in growth. To date, the company has financed more than $2 billion worth of global trade transactions spanning 80+ countries. It serves SMBs across India, Mexico, and the US, providing access to collateral-free credit.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has put severe pressure on cash flows of exporters and importers alike. This strain is being felt most by SMBs who have never had easy access to capital," said Pushkar Mukewar, CEO and Co-founder of Drip Capital. "We are excited to welcome TI Platform and Barclays to help further our mission to make global trade easy and accessible to SMBs across the world."

"We are proud to strengthen our partnership with Drip Capital and excited to support their vision for building the preeminent global trade platform," said Alex Bangash Managing Partner of TI Platform. "Global Trade Finance is expected to be a US $10 trillion market by 2026. Drip is comfortably established as the market leader in this space, providing SMEs with vital access to financing. Based on strong unit economics, powerful tech-driven underwriting, and growth trajectory, TI Platform considers it as a good candidate for breakaway upside."

Commenting on the warehouse credit facilities, Karl Boog, Head of Capital Markets at Drip Capital added, "Institutional alliances are an important pillar of our strategy. These strategic partnerships with leading banks like Barclays and EWB are a significant milestone for us. It is a strong testament to the quality of our assets and ability to grow our customer base rapidly."

Drip Capital will use the new funding to scale its business over the next 18 months. It will invest in products and technology and accelerate go-to-market in existing and new geographies like South Asia and Latin America.

The company also plans to launch a new trade facilitation platform designed to alleviate the pain points of small businesses while collaborating with participants across the value chain, including shipping lines, payment processors, and insurance providers.

About Drip Capital

Drip Capital is a fintech company that is transforming global trade finance. Drip Capital offers digitized trade financing solutions in markets like US, India and Mexico by providing small and medium business (SMBs) clients access to working capital and currently works with over 3,500 sellers and buyers across 80+ countries. The company acts as a strategic financial partner to these SMBs, allowing them to effectively manage their cash flows/working capital to accelerate sustainable business growth.

Drip Capital was honored as a CB Insights Top 250 Global Fintech Company in 2020. For further information on Drip Capital, please visit www.dripcapital.com

About TI Platform

TI Platform is a venture firm founded in 2015 by Alex Bangash and Trang Nguyen. Our firm's investment thesis is to find and support the ambitious entrepreneurs who are creating today's most disruptive venture structures, and to invest directly in tomorrow's category-defining leaders. TI Platform has built a unique network of founders who have collectively created over $60 billion in value, $35+ billion in company exits, and $920 billion+ in investment market capitalization. We have led and invested early in Drip Capital, Truepill, Sendbird, Truelink, LogDNA, Vouch Insurance, Acko Insurance, Groq, Zippedi, and Standard Cognition, among others. We now have over 64 unicorns in our portfolios. Prior to TI Platform Management, the principals were the first investors in Accel India, Founders Fund, Baseline, First Round Capital, Y Combinator, Emergence and Lowercase among others.

About Barclays

Barclays is a British universal bank, diversified by business, by different types of customers and clients, and by geography. Barclays' businesses include consumer banking and payments operations around the world, as well as a full-service corporate and investment bank.

For further information about Barclays, please visit www.home.barclays.

About East West Bank

East West Bank is the largest bank headquartered in Southern California. The bank is wholly-owned by East West Bancorp, Inc., which has total assets of $61.0 billion and is traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol "EWBC". East West Bank operates over 120 locations in the United States and China. The Company's presence in the United States includes California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Texas and Washington. In China, East West's presence includes full-service branches in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shantou and Shenzhen, and representative offices in Beijing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, and Xiamen. For more information on East West, visit www.eastwestbank.com.