Clearco completes recapitalisation, secures $60m Series D funding and $100m financing facility
Canadian growth capital firm Clearco has raised $60 million in a Series D funding round and secured a $100 million financing facility as part of its financial recapitalisation strategy.
Clearco recapitalises with $60m Series D and $100m financing facility
The Series D round was led by the firm’s existing investors Inovia Capital and Founders Circle Capital, while the new asset-backed facility is being provided by Pollen Street Capital.
The fundraise and facility are set to benefit Clearco’s revenue-based financing solution, Invoice Funding, which underwrites business loans using the firm’s AI and proprietary machine learning-based technology. The firm claims to have funded over 10,000 e-commerce businesses to date and advanced over $2.5 billion.
“All of these actions allow us to continue to support the growth of e-commerce businesses during a time of funding challenges for many companies,” explains Andrew Curtis, CEO of Clearco.
The firm says the recapitalisation comes “at a pivotal time when start-ups and specifically e-commerce businesses are facing multiple challenges”, due to the cautious approach of banks lending to small businesses amid tough macroeconomic conditions.
Clearco has faced its own fair share of challenges in recent times. The company cut 125 jobs in August 2022 as a result of “significant headwinds” in the lending environment, and then again it axed 30% of its remaining workforce five months later in conjunction with the resignation of its then-CEO Michele Romanow.
“Like most companies, we made hard calls in the last 12 months to be in the position we are now, focusing on long-term opportunities to grow intelligently and profitably,” writes Curtis, adding that “Clearco 2.0” aims to “support countless more entrepreneurs for years to come”.
Despite venture capital funding falling 48% in the first half of this year, Curtis asserts that those at the firm are “firm believers” in the resilience of e-commerce as an industry, and the company is “committed to providing the capital and resources these businesses need to succeed”.
