Xero acquires Waddle to help improve small business cash flow

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Today we’re excited to announce the acquisition of Waddle, a cloud-based invoice lending platform. Waddle helps connect small businesses to invoice finance, a form of secured lending that relies on a business’s unpaid invoices.

The acquisition of Waddle is an important step in our strategy to grow Xero’s small business platform and to help our customers better manage cash flow and gain access to working capital as needed.

Waddle’s lending platform has the potential to enable a wide range of banks, fintechs and other lenders to better support small business financial needs. We’re excited about the benefits Waddle can bring to small business and our banking partners.

Welcome, Waddle

Founded in Australia in 2014, Waddle’s lending platform service allows banks, fintechs and other lending partners to easily and quickly deliver invoice finance to small businesses that have elected to share their accounting data to enable a loan.

Waddle will remain a standalone company, however together we will jointly explore ways to expand our small business customers’ access to forms of lending beyond invoice finance. Waddle’s lending platform has huge potential and we’re excited about our future together.

A flexible solution for small business and lenders

For businesses looking to manage gaps in cash flow, Waddle provides a flexible, ongoing line of credit based on their invoices, with no minimum contract period. Borrowers typically receive funds the same day.

For lenders, Waddle’s platform helps to automate many of the manual processes involved in invoice finance.

Waddle currently has agreements with banks and lenders in the UK and Australia, and we look to expand these relationships with financial partners to support more small businesses. Waddle also manages a small direct-lending portfolio used primarily to refine its product development.

We will continue to support Xero’s open ecosystem, with over 200 financial services partnerships and API connections. Xero customers can select the apps and lending products that best meet their needs. We believe choice benefits our customers.

In these times, small businesses need support more than ever and we look forward to the next steps in our future with Waddle and opening new avenues of capital to small business.

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