ILex gets $4.5m to tackle inefficiencies in corporate lending

Photo credit: Molpix / Shutterstock

When Bertrand Billon launched iLex in 2019, he wanted to bring better liquidity, efficiency, intelligence, and security to the corporate lending market.

A year later, the Singapore-based firm raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from strategic investors in its home country, as well as ones based in France, Hong Kong, and the US.

“The ongoing volatile market conditions and the pressure on banks’ margins call for greater liquidity and efficiency in loan capital markets,” Billon, who also serves as iLex’s CEO, said in a statement announcing the company’s new US$4.5 million pre-series A round.

The round, led by Hong Kong-based VC firm QBN Capital, brings the fintech startup’s total funding to US$8.5 million to date.

ILex’s loan distribution platform aims to offer banks, asset managers, and debt advisors operational efficiencies in primary syndication and secondary trading processes.

Over the past year, the company said it has expanded across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and managed to boost the volume of assets listed on its platform to US$10 billion.

The fresh funds will help iLex improve its product roadmap and client acquisition across the Asia-Pacific and EMEA regions. The company also aims to increase secondary loan market volumes on its platform and roll out solutions to the primary market through partnerships.

Andy Tung, managing partner of QBN Capital, will join iLex’s board of directors, together with former SocGen deputy CEO Didier Valet, S&P Global managing director Darren Thomas, and loan technology veteran John Olesky.

See also: Can SEA catch up to open banking in the West?