Inversa was born in 2017 as a result of the concerns of its founders, Atilano Martínez, Ana Mª Belén Olmos and Berta Otero, professionals with extensive experience in finance, investment and risk analysis who promoted a technological solution to solve two major difficulties they often detected: that of SMEs to find funding and that of small investors to get returns on their savings. 

"Since March 2019 we have been operating in the Spanish market and we are the 'financial Tinder'. Our platform creates the favorable environment that facilitates the connection between companies and investors with the intention that they get to know each other and, if love arises, they can start a relationship where both parties win: the company gets an alternative and complementary financing channel to banking and the investor, a fairer return for their savings," explains Ana Mª Belén Olmos, one of its founders.

Inverse Invoice Market , connecting invoices and investment

Inversa offers a platform to provide solutions to increasingly digital and hyper-connected customers. Through crowdfactoring, it aims to democratize finance for any investor profile and support the growth of SMEs by investing directly in the real economy. Crowdfactoring, also known as invoice trading, is a type of alternative financing where companies anticipate the collection of the invoices they issue to their customers through the contributions of individual investors or other companies that advance them the money in exchange for a return, all this managed telematically through a digital platform. As Olmos exemplifies, "an SME offers an invoice that it is going to collect in 30, 60 or 90 days, and the individual investors contribute capital until the amount of the invoice is complete. The investors obtain a previously fixed return on their money, and the companies receive an advance on their invoices".

Specifically, in Inversa anyone can invest from 20 euros, thus democratizing investment and promoting financial education. "In addition, we make available a tool that we affectionately call Ramón. It is an artificial intelligence-based assistant that helps investors design their own strategies according to their profitability and risk objectives," he says. 

International vocation

The intense work carried out by the Inversa team had an impact on the internationalization of the brand, which now has investors and customers all over Europe. "During this time, the platform has been able to offer Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Swiss... and even Chinese invoices. All of them, with rates between 7% and 10% per annum and maturities not exceeding 180 days. At Inversa, nearly 50% of the invoices we publish on our platform correspond to invoices from international payers, which helps many SMEs to export, given the difficulties involved in managing these collections," he explains.

On the corporate side, its client portfolio consists mainly of Spanish entities that work not only for larger companies within Spain but also export to various countries outside Europe. Inversa offers them an alternative source of financing with a series of additional advantages, such as agility, flexibility and transparency. In addition, the possibilities of financing are greater by connecting with multiple investors and the money received through invoice trading does not compute as debt in the CIRBE (Central de Riesgos del Banco de España), so it does not penalize other complementary financing channels.

As of today, Inversa has more than 1,500 active investors and some 200 SMEs that use the platform on a daily basis. "Our platform bet from the beginning on technology through blockchain, big data, cloud computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence to automate processes, which allowed us to finance more than 3,600 invoices for a total amount of about 22 M€", he emphasizes. "Likewise, we identify ourselves as an ethical financing and investment platform. Through our crowdfactoring system, we enable savers to finance company invoices online. In this way, we promote the real economy, and value those projects that seek to transform their communities and improve the world," he concludes.

Inversa's main challenge for the coming years is expansion through internationalization into the European market.