November marks our first anniversary at Beehive, the UAE’s leading online marketplace for peer-to-peer (P2P) finance. Beehive employs over 20 staff headed by serial entrepreneur, Craig Moore, Beehive Founder and CEO, and supported by Rick Pudner, Chairman and former Group CEO of Emirates NBD.
Our online platform facilitates access to flexible funding solutions for established small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) seeking finance from AED 100,000 up to AED 1,000,000 with repayment terms up to 3 years.
In our first year, we have registered more than 2,600 investors and financed over 50 businesses, matching AED 25M of finance for SMEs and saving them up to 30% in cost.
The market response to the Beehive business finance solution has been overwhelming as we have received second applications for finance from 7 existing SMEs on the platform, which have been successfully funded.
In February we launched Invoice Finance, which helps businesses to unlock cash tied up in outstanding invoices and helps businesses to manage cash flow in a smarter way, as well as secondary market functionality where investors are able to transfer existing finance parts onto other interested investors on the platform.
In September 2015, Beehive pioneered a world first; by becoming the first independently certified Sharia compliant P2P platform globally. With Sharia-compliant offering, Beehive supports Dubai’s strategy to become the capital of the global Islamic Economy by 2016.
With our ability to make a positive difference in the SME ecosystem in the UAE, we have published an SME innovation whitepaper in partnership with Thomson Reuters called “Spotlight on SME innovation”. This report highlights what drives SME innovation in the UAE and the important factors for the growth and success of this community.
Our success has been prized with two of the most prestigious awards in the region, the Gulf Capital SME Award for “Startup Business of the Year 2015” and our CEO, Craig Moore, has been named “Entrepreneur of the Year” at Arabian Business Start-up Awards 2015.
At Beehive, we believe that SMEs are the main pillar of the global economy and we will continue to act as a catalyst and multiplier for the wider knowledge and digital economy in the UAE, in turn marking a positive difference in the SME ecosystem in the UAE.
