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Australia's fin-tech firms are becoming quite a big deal, and Tic:Toc is just one startup that's managing to catch the attention of some of the institutional players in the country.
Now, with a fresh injection of $11.5 million from investors, the Adelaide based fin-tech is ready to expand into new and exciting markets.
The company says the funds raised will go towards improving its platform and build greater brand awareness. Additionally, it will also partially fund Tic:Toc's expansion into offering its automated assessment platform as a service to partners, as well as exploring potential overseas expansion.
Tic:Toc, which dubs itself as "the world's only fully digital home loan platform", has recently caught the attention of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, bringing the banks into the company's share register.
With fin-tech fast becoming the latest frontier for entrepreneurs, Business News Australia spoke to Anthony Baum, the founder and CEO of Tik:Tok, about FY18, the company's plans for the future, and about how traditional banks need to digitise or get left behind.
What will the series B funding allow Tic:Toc to do in terms of growth/expansion etc?
The investment will be used to help the business grow and ensure we continue to relentlessly embrace and pursue new technologies. Specifically, capital from our Series B raise will be used towards continuing to build awareness for Tic:Toc, but also fund partner opportunities including offering our automated assessment platform as a service to partners. We're also looking into exploring UK, US and Canadian markets.
The business is still young how have you found your first financial year? Would you call it a success?
It's been a big year for Tic:Toc, and certainly a successful one: we've seen month on month growth; $1.26b in submitted home loans; and amassed a portfolio of $170m. More significantly, we launched a world first proposition to market, and have seen Australians intuitively adopt a radical way to get a home loan.
What were some FY18 highlights?
We've had plenty of milestones to celebrate, including our launch, first settled home loan (in less than a month from launch) and our first anniversary. Something that was particularly rewarding for the team, was seeing our portfolio (customer metrics and a proxy for responsible lending) stand side by side with Westpac's during the Royal Commission; highlighting that our automated assessment is not only more efficient and a better experience for the customer, but also a more responsible way to lend.
What's in the future for tic toc?
This year, we're working on a series of partnerships to offer our platform as a service to other institutions. This will mean they will use Tic:Toc technology to offer their customers a digital home loan experience. We're also looking to build awareness of Tic:Toc to increase customer awareness of our direct channel, and begin investigating the UK, US and Canadian markets.
Working collaboratively with banks, instead of against them, is a pretty new thing for a fin-tech to be doing. Why did you decide to go down this route?
Australians demand convenience and personalisation, and I think we'll see more financial institutions looking to collaborate with fintechs to offer customers better digital experiences. Fintech's have the advantage of agility without the burden of legacy systems, but can benefit from the access to capital, brand awareness , trust, and regulatory and compliance know how that comes with an incumbent firm.
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