About Qeld

The Story of Qeld

In 2015, my business partners and I set out to change the old industry of small business lending. Historically, the smallest businesses have been underfunded and under-served by old-fashioned, traditional banks.

We speak from experience: we've been in the same situation that hundreds of small businesses face every day. Let me tell you a short story: Once upon a time there was a relatively young and ambitious entrepreneur, let's call him Emil, who wanted to start his own business. There was much to learn, and much that was new, exciting and unfamiliar. One of the first things Emil had to do was go to a bank to apply for financing for his business. After a 15-minute conversation, during which he told the banker in a nice suit about his business plans, the entrepreneur was told that the bank did not think the business plan was well thought out and that, unfortunately, he could not become a customer of the bank. Fortunately, the entrepreneur did not give up and after a while managed to find a bank willing to accept his newly established business as a client.

Unfortunately, this is not a rare situation. Being taken seriously, getting time, advice and fair financing is uncommon among small business owners.

That's why in 2015 we decided to launch Qred ("Qeld"), to make financing easier and more available to entrepreneurs. Considering that four out of five new jobs are created by small business owners and that the future prosperity of the Netherlands largely depends on them, this is only fair. It is up to us to create new and ambitious businesses.

Today, Qred operates in as many as six markets, is one of Sweden's fastest-growing fintech companies and has been listed in the Financial Times list of Europe's fastest-growing companies for as many as four years in a row. In addition, Qred is the largest financier of small businesses in the Nordic region and since October 2023 we are also one of Europe's newest banks. Qred has been operating in the Netherlands since 2018 under the trade name Qeld.

We now aim to become Europe's number one small business bank. We want all businesses to get the treatment and respect they need and, above all, deserve. By using machine-learning and AI, we can make a thorough and adequate credit assessment within seconds, and with our integrations with other platforms, we can disburse loans within minutes.

To date, we have provided financing to over 100,000 entrepreneurs and helped to create over 40,000 jobs over the years. Our goal is to empower the millions of entrepreneurs across Europe with severe banking shortages and make the old-fashioned, traditional banks a little more humble.

‍EmilSunvisson, CEO and co-founder