Sydney fintech InDebted, backed by strong growth, raises $60m to boost valuation to $350m

The Series C raise values InDebted at $350 million, with the company declaring it is now the second-largest player in the Australian debt collection market.

The latest round was led by Airtree and supported by existing investors Reinventure, Carthona and Perennial. Joining Airtree as primary investors were Australian Retirement Trust and growth fund Premier Capital Partners, while Second Quarter Ventures bought shares from angel investors and early employees.

The successful Series C round came on the back of a strong year of growth for InDebted which also has operations in the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand.

The company says it achieved operating profitability in February this year, with a compound annual growth rate of 110 per cent.

InDebted was founded in 2016 by Josh Foreman after he searched for a collections provider for a client and found the industry wanting.

Foreman, the InDebted CEO, founded the company on the basis of employing artificial intelligence and machine learning to “personalise every collections journey” and with the support of a dedicated customer experience team, InDebted says it “makes the experience of debt resolution more human”.

Foreman sees the latest capital raise as a vindication of his approach to debt collections, which is also supported by global companies such as Zip, Amber, Upstart and Klarna as clients. InDebted says it currently has 3.6 million customers with more than six million active accounts totalling $2 billion across five markets.

“This capital will enable us to further expand our operations around the world, where we’re experiencing significant demand for the solution we provide,” says Foreman.

“We’re launching in the UAE and Mexico in the next month and following this we’ll be using the fresh capital to further our presence in Europe and South America.

“While our vision is global, I’m incredibly proud that this raise consists almost exclusively of Australian capital to accelerate InDebted into the next chapter.

“We’re thrilled to have the support of Airtree, one of Australia’s largest and most renowned venture funds, along with existing investors reinforcing their belief in our mission to change the world of consumer debt for good - and our proven ability in delivering on this.”

Airtree partner and co-founder Craig Blair says InDebted is “rewriting the narrative on debt collection” by using technology and data to deliver “ethical solutions that alleviate what has traditionally been a painful customer experience”.

“We've known Josh and the team for many years and have seen the business go from strength to strength, positioning themselves as category leaders and displacing incumbents along the way,” says Blair.

“InDebted's global success, product innovation and best-in-class growth and performance made partnering with the team for this next stage an easy decision.”

Reinventure first invested in InDebted’s seed round after seeing the potential for efficiency gains through technology in “a very large, manual industry”.

"Since then, the team has continued to impress us by creating an empathetic solution to a difficult problem, becoming the only partner for organisations who are serious about customer experience,” says Danny Gilligan, co-founder of Reinventure.

InDebted says the fresh capital is not needed to support InDebted's existing operations, but will instead be used to expand into new markets, deliver on its merger and acquisition strategy, and further develop products and solutions.

“Globally, the debt collection industry is ripe for consolidation, and this capital injection ensures we are well placed to continue our participation in this consolidation to further drive profitable growth for our investors, while progressing the sector at large, and supporting people around the world with a better experience managing debt,” says Foreman.