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Australia’s Judo Bank Closes On $147M Series C For SME Loans

Judo Bank, an Australian neobank that provides loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has raised $147 million in a Series C round of funding.

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The raise comes just 10 months after the Melbourne-based startup raised a $261.6 million Series B that was considered to be “the largest private investment” in a local startup, according to AVCJ. It also comes weeks after Judo Bank secured $500 million in government funding for its SMB loans.

With this latest financing, Judo Bank has raised a total of about $500 million in equity, according to Crunchbase data, in addition to a known $450 million in debt. The Series C made Judo Bank a unicorn in Australian dollars with a valuation north of $1 billion in local currency, or $653.7 million in U.S. dollars. Existing backers participated in the round, including Bain Capital Credit and Ironbridge Capital.

Founded in 2017, Judo Bank got its license to take deposits last year. The bank now has more than $1.5 billion in deposits and has written more than $1.5 billion in loans, with around 10,000 customers across both loans and deposits, according to startupdaily.net.

“We now have one of the strongest capitalised tier-1 ratios in the country, and intend on rapidly growing our national footprint, and expanding the products and services we offer to thousands of Australian SMEs, whose needs have long been ignored by the major banks,” co-CEO and co-founder David Hornery told Startupdaily.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias

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