Irish fintech Swoop awarded €5.6m under RBS bailout fund scheme

Irish fintech start-up Swoop Finance has been awarded £5 million (€5.6 million) from a fund established by banking giant RBS as part of its £45 million (€50.3 million) bailout programme.

Swoop is one of five start-ups to be awarded a combined £25 million in grants under the latest round of the banking competition remedies scheme.

The £775 million fund, which launched earlier this year, was created as a condition on RBS for accepting a £45 million bailout from the British government during the height of the financial crisis. It is intended to boost competition in the UK’s small business banking sector.

Grant

Other recipients of grants from the scheme include Form 3, which is backed by Dublin and London-listed VC firm Draper Esprit, and Starling, the British challenger bank that is in the process of establishing an Irish presence. The latter was awarded a £100 million grant under the first instalment of the programme in February.

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Founded by Andrea Reynolds and Ciaran Burke last year, Swoop has developed a technology platform that matches SMEs with funding. The company has more than 1,000 funding providers on its database.

“Swoop serves as a virtual chief financial officer [CFO] connecting SMEs to the best solutions for their business needs,” is how Ms Reynolds described the business.

The company recently closed a £1.5 million seed round of its own with backers including Enterprise Ireland.