Beehive, the UAE’s online marketplace for peer-to-peer finance, announced it has facilitated over AED 12 million ($3 million) in finance for more than 25 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UAE since its launch in November 2014. The funds, raised from investors on the Beehive platform, have allowed businesses across a broad range of sectors to expand, recruit more staff and refinance existing debt, saving them on average up to 30 per cent on their financing costs.
“This key milestone comes at a time when hundreds of SMEs across the UAE are struggling to gain access to the finance needed to grow their businesses,” said Craig Moore, Founder and CEO of Beehive. “This is a major step in Beehive’s effort to bring attractively priced finance directly to SMEs. We are connecting investors with creditworthy businesses to build mutually beneficial partnerships for growth through our innovative platform and also through new financing options, such as our Invoice Finance product. SMEs represent the vast majority of companies in the UAE, and provide the bulk of jobs in the private sector, and we are proud to support them.”
The Beehive platform uses peer-to-peer finance, based on crowdfunding technology, to directly connect investors with creditworthy businesses seeking working capital to grow their business. The technology eliminates the cost and complexity of conventional finance and enables SMEs to access faster, lower cost and more flexible funding. Beehive facilitates business finance solutions starting at AED 100,000 for up to three years at very competitive rates. Investors can join Beehive by setting up an account with only AED 1,000 and can invest from as little as AED 100 into businesses listed on the platform. Beehive has already attracted over 1,500 investor registrations, and that number continues to rise.
Wadih Haddad, Founder and CEO of The Box, a UAE based self-storage company, said, “As a medium-sized, rapidly growing business, one of the major issues plaguing us was a lack of financial support. Dealing with banks presented an endless battle of unreasonable rates, paperwork and time delays. Luckily Beehive did a good deal of the grunt work for us. They provided us with cheaper, quicker and more flexible finance, and as a result we saved around 30 per cent on our financing costs. This meant that we could spend more money on growing our business and less time on red tape.”
Vishaal S Shah, CEO of Panache International, said, “The speed of Beehive’s financing process came as a sharp contrast to the months we had previously spent anticipating responses from banks. The way the process was conducted also allowed us to assess our business from a variety of angles and reconfirmed to us that we were on the right path.”
Prabissh Thomas, CEO of PTL Solar, said, “The funding we received through Beehive came at a stage in our business when we were growing at a very fast pace and needed quick access to finance at good rates. It was a simple process, and after only two weeks we received the money at a very attractive cost.”
Source: CPI FINANCIAL
