The story of Qred

In 2015, my business partners and I set out to change the old business of lending, and more specifically to small businesses. Historically, the smallest businesses have been underbanked and poorly served by the old, traditional banks; we speak from experience, because 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, a long, long time ago, there was a relatively young and ambitious entrepreneur, let's call him Emil, who wanted to start his own business. There was a lot to learn, and a lot that was new, exciting and unknown. One of the first things Emil had to do was go to a bank to get a bank account for his company. After a 15-minute meeting where he told the banker in a nice suit about his business plans, the entrepreneur was told that the bank didn't think the business idea seemed well thought out and unfortunately he couldn't become a customer of the bank. Fortunately, the entrepreneur did not give up and eventually managed to find a bank that would accept his start-up business as a customer.This is unfortunately not a rare situation. Being taken seriously, given time, advice and fair financing is uncommon among small business owners.

That's why we decided in 2015 to start Qred, to make financing easier and more accessible for entrepreneurs, which is only fair, considering that 4 out of 5 new jobs are created by small business owners, and that Sweden's future prosperity largely depends on creating new and ambitious companies. Today, Qred operates in no less than six markets, is one of Sweden's fastest growing fintech companies and has been recognized on the Financial Times list of Europe's fastest growing companies for four years in a row. In addition, Qred is the leading source of funding for small businesses in the Nordics, and from October 2023, we are also one of Europe's newest banks.

We are now striving to become the leading small business bank in Europe. We want all companies to get the treatment and respect they need and, above all, deserve. Using machine learning and artificial intelligence, we can make a thorough and adequate credit assessment in seconds, and with our integrations to other platforms, we can disburse loans in minutes. So far, we've empowered more than 100,000 entrepreneurs and helped create over 40,000 jobs over the years. We're committed to empowering the millions of severely underbanked entrepreneurs across Europe and humbling the old, traditional banks.

Emil Sunvisson, CEO and co-founder