Valiant Finance was founded in 2015 in Sydney as a digital marketplace which connects small businesses of Australia with potential lenders. The founders identified a niche in the market created by restricted access to capital that many of Australia’s two million small business were experiencing at the time.

As a small business owner, with competing priorities and resource constraints, navigating credit options can often be a daunting experience, with a myriad of lenders, lack of transparency and complex fee structures. However, having access to the right finance structure and price can often be business critical for many SMEs.

Valiant set out to help small businesses discover their borrowing options, understand their creditworthiness, maximise chance of loan approval and make the loan application process more efficient. To achieve this, Valiant created a digital platform acting as a digital broker between the SMEs and the lenders. The digital platform allowed a small business to obtain a credit health-check, using credit criteria to match them with products they are eligible for and then apply using a simple, hassle-free digital application form.

Over the next six years, Valiant went from strength-to-strength, growing their team and helping small businesses of Australia access $850 million in funding for asset finance, commercial and working capital loans. In 2017, Valiant was awarded the Fintech Start-up of the Year Award.

The business has grown to a team of more than 100, creating roles across various disciplines such as product, software engineering, business development, risk and compliance, customer support and many more.

Valiant has raised over $20 million in funding from both Australian and overseas investors, notably bringing the international juggernaut Salesforce16 onboard as an investor in one of their recent rounds.

Reinventure invested a total of $5 million into Valiant over the course of five years, starting at Seed round and through to Series B. The investments were made through an ESVCLP fund.

In September, the Australian Investment Council lodged a very important submission with the Federal Department of the Treasury in response to the Venture Capital Tax Concessions Review which was announced as part of the Government’s Digital Economy Strategy in the 2021–22 Federal Budget. The review has been focused on how effective VCLPs, ESVCLPs and AFOFs have been in attracting domestic and foreign capital, developing innovation, and expanding venture capital management skills and experience in the domestic market. Read the submission here.

Published February, 2022