How Qred came into the world
The small business owner's story
In 2015, my business partners and I decided to change the century-old industry of lending, and more specifically, lending to small businesses. Traditionally, the smallest companies have been underfunded by traditional banks.
Speaking from experience, we've found ourselves in the same situation that hundreds of small businesses face every day. Let me tell you a short story: Once upon a time, there was a relatively young and aspiring entrepreneur, let's call him Emil, who wanted to start his own business. There was much to learn and much that was new, exciting and unknown. One of the first things Emil had to do was go to a bank to open a bank account for his company. After a 15-minute conversation in which he told the banker in a nice suit about his business plans, the entrepreneur was told that the bank did not think the business idea was well thought out and that unfortunately he could not become a customer of the bank. Fortunately, the entrepreneur did not give up and after a while managed to find a bank that would accept his newly founded company as a customer.
Unfortunately, this is not a rare situation. It often happens that small entrepreneurs are not taken seriously, or do not receive the time, advice and fair financing.
That's why we decided to start Qred in 2015: to make financing easier and more accessible for entrepreneurs. It's only fair, considering that 4 out of 5 new jobs are created by small business owners and that countries' future prosperity depends largely on whether we create new and ambitious companies.
Today, Qred operates in no less than six markets, is one of the fastest-growing fintech companies in Sweden, and has been included in the Financial Times list of fastest growing companies in Europe for four years in a row. In addition, Qred is the largest lender of small companies in Scandinavia and, as of October 2023, we will also be one of the newest banks in Europe.
We are now striving to become the number one small business bank in Europe. We want all companies to receive the treatment and respect they need and, above all, deserve. By using machine learning and AI, we can make a thorough and adequate credit assessment in seconds, and with our integrations with other platforms, we can pay out the loans within minutes.
So far, we've funded more than 100,000 entrepreneurs and helped create more than 50,000 jobs over the years. We have set ourselves the goal of financing the millions of entrepreneurs across Europe who are heavily underbanked and to make traditional banks a little bit more humble.
Emil Sunvisson, CEO and Co-Founder
