UK FinTech kennek raises $4.5m to empower alternative lenders

By Gloria Methri

London-based FinTech firm kennek has raised a $4.5 million pre-seed funding round led by Dutch Founders Fund, ffVC, and Plug and Play Ventures.

The company has developed an end-to-end operating system designed to streamline the operations for lenders, credit investors, corporates, and services in the alternative credit sector.

kennek was founded in 2021 to solve two major pain points: operational scalability for lenders and investors; and more efficient funding of credits.

In its first year of trading, kennek has already launched a plug-and-play operating system that caters to a broad variety of lenders and credit products. The company’s UK operation has secured commercial wins with clients operating in the areas of SME loans, R&D credit, and Commercial Real Estate.

The ultimate goal of kennek is to make scalable and robust lending infrastructure accessible to everyone in order to facilitate more funding to flow to the real economy.

The FinTech is working with existing lenders and banks, but also with new lenders that can be launched efficiently with its complete lender-in-a-box. As such, kennek plays the role of lender incubator offering credit expertise, the full operating system, and access to institutional funding. Corporates also use kennek to offer embedded credit and to manage their receivables financing.

Laurens Groenendijk of Dutch Founders Fund said, “De Pauw, Lancksweert, and Parsons bring the such varied and necessary experience together to address the inefficiencies of lending. The uniquely designed product and lending rails that kennek is creating will make it much easier for lenders worldwide to launch, operate and scale,” he added.

Xavier De Pauw, co-founder, and CEO of kennek added, “Our goal is to create a single point of truth for all stakeholders in the lending value chain. This will help drive capital from institutional investors to the real economy, such as SMEs, property developers, and corporates.”