Oper Credits, a Belgian-Swiss mortgage SaaS company, secured €11m in a series A funding round.
The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners & ABN Amro Ventures with participation from existing shareholders Techstars, Pitchdrive and Verve Ventures.
The company intends to use the funds to increase investment in R&D and recruitment, expand into France and Germany, as well as Austrian, Czech and Slovakian markets.
Founded in 2018 and led by Geert Van Kerckhoven, Nick Van Berckelaer and Wouter Lachat, Oper offers a white-label SaaS solution for banks and financial institutions in the mortgage lending space.
The company has grown to become the leading provider of digitised mortgage solutions in Belgium and Switzerland and has a significant footprint across Europe. In total, it has closed around €1bn of mortgage loans.
Oper’s digital mortgage solution also fits into the “post-branch strategy” of many retail banks in Europe. Many European banks are moving away from the philosophy that every important product is bought in the local bank branch, something Geert Van Kerckhoven believes proves that the market is at tipping point for the use of software and AI-driven solutions.
He continued: “It seems to us that banks are stuck in an either-or mind-set. Either they are committed to their branch strategy or they try to push the clients to a zero touch process. Based on our experience, a hybrid strategy will win out in the end – and we hope it’ll be ours!”
At the heart of Oper’s product and ambition to digitise the mortgage industry is the use of smart data. In today’s economy, most processes are built around providing data by handing over documents. With this new funding, Oper will focus developing the building blocks needed to gather data from a variety of sources, including payroll, income stats, spending habits etc. and then in turn process this information within the mortgage context to reduce the time-to-yes and ultimately create a better experience for the borrower.
Oper currently employs a total of 45 people from 12 different nationalities living in 16 different cities across Europe. Its official offices are in Antwerp, Zurich and Minsk, serving a total of 13 clients – a figure they hope to double in the next year.
FinSMEs
13/07/2022