24 november 2022
Opyn is an Italian fintech company that has gained the status of Lending-as-a-Service (LaaS) modular platform, with the key role in supporting the entire lending value chain.
In particular, Opyn provides small and medium companies with loans and it helps them obtain financing more quickly,thanks to a full-digital evaluation process. Furthermore, the company enables many of its customer through its tech platform to expand their offer to allow users who use non-financial services to also access the associated financial services, the so-called embedded finance services.
Ivan Pellegrini and Antonio Lafiosca are the minds behind this project, which began in October 2013.
Opyn’s development and results
Initially, the two founders created a digital brokerage platform for credit companies called BorsadelCredito.it. Then, in 2015, BorsadelCredito.it became a P2P lending platform, and it started to provide SMEs with loans by introducing them to private investors.
The first period of Covid pandemic and the consequent lockdown in Italy represented a turning point for the company. Until then, Italy had not had relevant technological development in the business loans market. Thus, the country started working to catch up. At the same time, enterprises increasingly turned to BorsadelCredito.it, even if the Italian government had activated a 400-billion-dollar programme for guaranteed loans. This happened because more and more companies were starting to realize that fintech lending was quicker than traditional one.
In 2015, P101 became a shareholder of the company. BorsadelCredito.it won a 1-million-dollar round with its support. Then, one year later, the latter collected €1,6 million in another investment round, in which Azimut was involved. P101 and GC Holding led the entire process.
In 2021, BorsadelCredito.it changed its name to Opyn. From 2020 to 2021, the amount paid out increased by 257%: in that period, the company deployed almost €391,5 million to 1,275 enterprises. In 2021, the average loan amounted to more than 150,000 euros. By June 2022 Opyn has already exceeded the total amount paid out in all the 2021 and since inception has reached the disbursed amount of €1 billion since 2019.
What makes Opyn different?
Compared to its competitors, Opyn has always relied on its proprietary technology. It has built specific technological equipment to simplify the digitalization and disintermediation of lending processes for SMEs.
Nowadays, Opyn is still implementing its technology. This aspect is also a fundamental part of its evolution from lending company to service provider for banks, factoring companies, and every enterprise involved in credit, business lending or that aims to provide its customers with new financial services.
Between 2020 and 2021, Opyn worked with the main Italian lending institutions intensely. From the beginning, the founders wanted to develop a private debt market in Italy.
Further developments
Besides continuing to play an important role in the business loans sector, Opyn intends to consolidate its position in the embedded finance world. To do this, the company leans on the “platform as a service” model.
The embedded finance market is worth $7 billion globally. Thanks to this service, even enterprises that are not born as financial companies are entitled to deploy supply chain loans. They can also provide their customers with deferments, payments by instalments, and other financial services.
As part of this new line of business, Opyn has entered an innovative partnership with the Italian bank Banca Valsabbina. Banca Valsabbina will loan SMEs up to 100 million euros thanks to Opyn’s technology. Using the “Licensing as a service” model, the bank will be able to employ Opyn’s software that evaluates SMEs creditworthiness for potential loans.
In the following years, Opyn will keep expanding its team. The company wants to hire more than 30 professionals by the end of 2022. They are looking for new team members to strengthen their technological platform and start new partnerships.
Also, Opyn’s platform is undergoing major developments. “We are working on a new platform with important features that we will release by the end of 2022”, says Lafiosca, Opyn’s co-founder andCOO. “Also, we aim to accelerate the distribution process for our software ‘as a service’ in the Italian and international markets. We have scheduled to launch this product in EU markets over the next three years”.
He also states: “At Opyn we think that ESG goals are very important for the global economy. For this reason, we will be the first Italian company (among the ones that embraced fintech from the beginning) to publish a sustainability report. Our goal is to help SMEs adapt to the new global challenges and grow in a sustainable way”.
