A financial technology company co-founded by a Waterloo Engineering alumnus has achieved unicorn status after securing a US $100-million investment.
Andrew D’Souza, who graduated from the systems design engineering program in 2008, launched Clear Finance Technology Corp. in 2015 with his partner Michele Romanow, a panelist on the Dragons’ Den television show, and several other founders.
Now branded as Clearco (formerly Clearbanc), the Toronto-based company announced this week that it has raised US $100 million in equity, which values it at almost US $2 billion. Unicorns are tech startups that reach US $1 billion in valuation.
Clearco uses algorithms to determine which small businesses and early stage startups to finance, in many cases filling a gap for those with few hard assets to borrow against.
“With US $2B deployed to more than 4,500 founders, we’ve proven that we can find and fund entrepreneurs using machine learning and AI in a much more egalitarian way, and we’re gratified that the investment community sees that,” D’Souza, the CEO of the company, said in a media release.