UK FinTech start-up Hokodo has been awarded €2m by the European Commission’s funding programme for innovation and research Horizon 2020.
Grants from the programme were awarded to “market-creating innovations” that demonstrate high growth prospects, and are highly competitive.
Co-founded by Richard Thornton, Louis Carbonnier and Sami Ben Hatit, the trio set up the firm in the UK October 2018.
The company has already established a range of partnerships, including one with Centrifuge, a trade finance platform and challenger bank CountingUp.
The company has also developed its own credit scoring algorithm, HokoScore, designed to help businesses to check the credit ratings of their clients and suppliers.
The funding, awarded to Hokodo’s French office, will enable the firm to launch invoice protection and HokoScore in France and Germany within the next 12 months, and will help it to develop two new trade credit products for the SME market, which are due in 2019.
“Receiving the grant from Horizon 2020 is a huge boost for the business. Not only does it enable us to offer invoice insurance across Europe sooner than we would have otherwise, but we estimate we’ll be able to protect over €200 million worth of B2B trade over the next two years,” said Louis Carbonnier, Co-CEO and co-founder of Hokodo.
“Every year across Europe, hundreds of thousands of companies are driven into insolvency because of late or non-payment of invoices.
“Trade credit insurance exists to mitigate this issue, yet SMEs have effectively been blocked from the market by an old-fashioned broker model, which doesn’t suit their needs
“It is also a huge vote of confidence for the importance of what we’re trying to do, and the role we have to play in supporting SME trade and success.”