smeGo’s loan portfolio grew 44% in the Netherlands in Q1 this year
smeGo, the pan-European financial services platform dedicated to established small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) announced a substantial 44% increase in the portfolio size in the Netherlands after successfully launching in the market last year. The company reports that it is happy to witness a doubling of the number of incoming requests for financing in one of Europe’s largest economies.
CEO of smeGo, Mindaugas Mikalajunas, commented on the company’s performance, saying, “It is heartening that, despite the challenging macroeconomic environment in the markets we operate – the Baltic countries, Finland and the Netherlands, we still managed stable growth across the board. All in all our financed amount throughout all our operating countries was €100m collectively, of which 70% was given out as business loans with an average amount of close to €90k. I’m especially happy that our portfolio is divided rather evenly among all the sectors that SMEs are operating in, be it trade, service, construction, logistics, manufacturing, real estate, or agriculture.
“It is also encouraging to witness how fast we are moving along our technology roadmap after Vaidas Adomauskas, former head of Revolut Business, joined the management team as chief product and technology officer. During the first quarter of this year, we entirely renewed the customer onboarding flow and automated KYC & AML processes using the newest AI-powered technologies so that our in-house experts can use their time dealing with strategic plans rather than rote, repetitive work,” Mikalajunas added.
“My job is to ensure that our product-market fit remains best-in-class. We’re already positioned uniquely because established SMEs are often overlooked. Our tech stack is tailored and modular, designed to address the challenges of established SMEs effectively. Whether we have 20 or 100 salespeople, we need to maintain our conversion and satisfaction rates. We want to remain lean and fast, unlike traditional big companies. We are able to scale our sales and operations with advanced tech and thereby provide our customers with the best service available with much lower acquisition and operational costs. That’s our vision for the future”, Vaidas Adomauskas explained his role.
“And last but not least, it is always rewarding when your efforts and hard work get noticed. smeGo was awarded the “Growth Story of the Year” at the “Lithuanian Fintech Awards”, the most prestigious award in the region. Considering how fiercely competitive the fintech scene in the Baltics is and how many brilliant companies originate from here, it is most definitely an outstanding achievement for all of us”, Mikalajunas proudly said.
