Wonga has today made an announcement about a huge second round of funding, which means we have new backing from some of the world’s top VC companies. The cash will allow us to continue growing and keep improving the service even further for our customers. Check out our press release…

Wonga.com, the leading online provider of short term cash advances, today announced the completion of a major new round of funding led by Accel Partners and Greylock Partners.

The $22.25m round was also supported by existing investor Balderton Capital and will allow the company to continue the strong growth demonstrated since the site’s full market launch just eleven months ago.

Wonga.com was founded by Errol Damelin and Jonty Hurwitz and helps UK consumers solve occasional cash flow problems in a quick yet responsible manner. The company has already provided nearly 100,000 flexible cash advances of up to 30 days. Applicants select exactly how much cash they need, up to £750. They can then determine their own price by then selecting how many days they want the money for.

Errol Damelin, chief executive officer of Wonga, said: “Our ground-breaking technical innovation and focus on amazing our customers with high levels of service has enabled us to become profitable in a very short a space of time. Yet we are also building a sustainable business based on making highly selective and responsible lending decisions.

“We’ve built to scale and there is now huge scope for expansion and delivering even more value for our customers. Balderton Capital has backed us from concept and our two new investors show how game-changing the Wonga proposition is.

“Accel Partners is a global investor that has backed some of the fastest growth companies of the last two decades, such as Facebook. Greylock Partners is a thought leader and a long-term investor and they’ve made a significant statement by making a commitment to Wonga. Backing from three such prominent firms underscores our ability to challenge a major market in a very meaningful way.”

Laurel Bowden, partner at Greylock, commented: “In this market, there are some excellent opportunities to build innovative financial services businesses. Wonga’s management team has developed a very innovative and real-time credit offering, solving relatively small immediate cash needs, and the business has shown impressive traction in the market. This is a key deal for Greylock in Europe and we are pleased to have an opportunity to help Wonga expand both locally and globally.”

Wonga.com is the first and only company to fully automate the lending process and provide a truly online credit solution around the clock. Applicants receive an instant answer thanks to sophisticated risk and decision technology that crunches hundreds of pieces of data in milliseconds. Cash is then deposited into the customer’s bank account within an hour, at any time of day or night.

Sonali De Rycker, partner at Accel, said: “Wonga’s ability to offer credit in real-time while keeping a tight control on customer experience and defaults is truly disruptive. The team has done a phenomenal job growing the company rapidly over a short period of time. We believe the company has the potential to become a category leader in the consumer finance marketplace.”

Wonga has received glowing feedback from customers and industry insiders alike, recently achieving a world-class Net Promoter Score of 79% and scooping numerous awards including the Red Herring 100 EMEA, Credit Risk Team of the Year from Credit Today and One to Watch in the annual Media Momentum listings.

Bernard Liautaud, partner at Balderton, added: “It is a great achievement to have raised such a significant second-round funding in this environment and proves the success of the Wonga business model. We backed the company three years ago and in that short space of time Errol and his team have created breakthrough innovation in consumer finance.”

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 9:54 am