WLTH launches capital raise ahead of merger

Brisbane digital non-bank lender and payment WLTH has officially launched its $15 million capital raising round this week (commencing 22 November), as it ramps up its growth plans.

As flagged earlier this year, the Series A round comes off the back of its $3 million Seed fundraising, and aims to support its goal to settle $1.2 billion worth of loans by the financial year 2022 and fund its next round of expansion.

As part of its expansion plans, the lender has revealed that the capital raised from the Series A round – which will close to applications of interest on 10 December – will be used to support its agreed corporate merger with an “established Australian payments platform”.

While the merger partner has specified not to be named until the Series A round ends in December, WLTH has said that the company is an “established eight-year-old Australian payments platform credited with servicing over 7,000 SME clients and 150,000 payees, and processing in excess of $1 billion in payments volume per annum”. 

As part of the agreed corporate merger, WLTH will support the WLTH Pay product, which is scheduled to be launched in February 2022, utilising the merger partner’s payments infrastructure. 

This in turn will enable WLTH’s customers to access the product via a single platform ecosystem.

The fintech added that the round and merger would also help “fast-track the WLTH product roadmap” (which includes personal and business transaction accounts, SMSF, and a payments app), support its plans to enter into other territories and markets, and help bed down brand recognition.

Brodie Haupt, chief executive and co-founder of WLTH, commented: “We are excited to officially open our highly anticipated Series A at such a pivotal moment in WLTH’s history. The merger and raise indicates the maturing of the WLTH brand and signals the next iteration of our growth journey.

“This deal is the beginning of a growth campaign for WLTH, which will involve further M&A activities, and venture capital partnerships. We are already in the process of closing a large deal which will significantly increase WLTH’s distribution and client base by mid-2022.

“Through this Series A round, we’re also looking to use some of the funds to invest in our growth strategies, as well as scale our distribution efforts by launching our loan product to the broker market, with the objective of having over 1,000 brokers writing WLTH loans by the end of the current financial year.”

Since being founded by entrepreneur siblings Brodie Haupt and Drew Haupt, the Brisbane-based fintech has settled more than $50 million worth of loans, with $655 million expected to settle in the coming months.

Earlier this year it officially launched its mortgage offering and a broker portal through which brokers can onboard, lodge and settle WLTH loans for customers. The company has also made a string of new hires, growing the team by 120 per cent since November last year.

[Related: WLTH to launch $15m raise, flags expansion]