Fundu
“With Salesforce, we can approve and distribute loans faster”
Fundu helps more small businesses achieve their growth ambitions with Salesforce
Businesses need access to cash to grow. And Fundu is on a mission to help small and medium enterprises in Finland tap into the right financing at the right time. “The SME ecosystem is vital to Finland’s economy and labour market,” said Mikko Mantila, who sits on Fundu’s board. “We want to channel funds direct to growth companies, so they can keep investing and recruiting.”
Since it was founded in 2014, Fundu has helped connect more than 500 SMEs and entrepreneurs with investors across the country. And with Salesforce, it can make these connections in record time: it now takes four days instead of seven to issue a credit rating - an essential first step in the lending process.
“With Salesforce, we can approve and distribute loans faster,” explained Mantila. “There are a lot of innovative companies in Finland, but they need funding to make their ideas become a reality.”
Since it was founded in 2014, Fundu has helped connect more than 500 SMEs and entrepreneurs with investors across the country. And with Salesforce, it can make these connections in record time: it now takes four days instead of seven to issue a credit rating - an essential first step in the lending process.
“With Salesforce, we can approve and distribute loans faster,” explained Mantila. “There are a lot of innovative companies in Finland, but they need funding to make their ideas become a reality.”
Investors cash in on crowd lending approach.
With bank loans becoming increasingly regulated and restricted, Fundu fills a vital gap in the Finnish finance market. Its crowd lending platform attracts thousands of individual and institutional investors, who back business, junior, and bridging loans with an average value of €100,000.
The trailblazing team at Fundu has built an automatic allocator for matching registered lenders with relevant funding requests as well as an algorithm to power its unique credit rating system. “We want to bring greater integrity, reliability, and transparency to the lending market,” said Mantila.
The trailblazing team at Fundu has built an automatic allocator for matching registered lenders with relevant funding requests as well as an algorithm to power its unique credit rating system. “We want to bring greater integrity, reliability, and transparency to the lending market,” said Mantila.
Fundu deploys flexible CRM platform to support growth.
Thanks to the strength of its capabilities and credentials, Fundu has become a growth company in its own right. And a growth company needs scalable and flexible processes.
Fundu collaborates with a number of financial services providers as well as the Finnish Association of Entrepreneurs, which has tens of thousands of members. “We need to be able to manage leads from our website and partners and report back on performance,” explained Mantila. “As lead volumes increased, our manual processes were no longer sufficient. We needed a CRM platform to help keep everyone up to date.”
In April 2018, Salesforce became that platform. “We have a lot of unique processes and reports, so the ability to integrate and customise with ease was essential,” said Juuso Fabritius, Salesforce Administrator at Fundu.
Fundu collaborates with a number of financial services providers as well as the Finnish Association of Entrepreneurs, which has tens of thousands of members. “We need to be able to manage leads from our website and partners and report back on performance,” explained Mantila. “As lead volumes increased, our manual processes were no longer sufficient. We needed a CRM platform to help keep everyone up to date.”
In April 2018, Salesforce became that platform. “We have a lot of unique processes and reports, so the ability to integrate and customise with ease was essential,” said Juuso Fabritius, Salesforce Administrator at Fundu.
Customisations drive continuous improvement.
To ensure it maximised the full potential of platform, the Fundu team signed up to Trailhead, Salesforce Accelerators, and a Premier Success plan. “At first, we were a bit intimidated about making the different customisations but once we got started, it was really intuitive,” explained Fabritius. “We ended up doing everything in-house even though we had no previous knowledge of Salesforce.”
Fundu uses a sandbox environment to test customisations for Sales Cloud before releasing them into production. “With Salesforce, we can keep improving our processes and adding new features. It has helped to fast-track innovation, which benefits the investor and SME community,” added Fabritius.
Fundu uses a sandbox environment to test customisations for Sales Cloud before releasing them into production. “With Salesforce, we can keep improving our processes and adding new features. It has helped to fast-track innovation, which benefits the investor and SME community,” added Fabritius.
Better visibility boosts sales performance.
Fundu uses Sales Cloud to capture, qualify, and convert leads from a variety of different sources. “With Sales Cloud, we can track every step in the customer journey and identify where we need to make improvements,” said Fabritius. “It has increased visibility, continuity and efficiency across our sales operation.”
Collaboration between sales and the credit department is essential to onboarding new customers. With Chatter, the team members can tag each other in conversations and share information to support the credit rating process. The sales team also use the Salesforce Mobile App when working remotely. “With Salesforce, our people can react and complete tasks faster to help keep the sales cycle moving forward,” added Fabritius.
Collaboration between sales and the credit department is essential to onboarding new customers. With Chatter, the team members can tag each other in conversations and share information to support the credit rating process. The sales team also use the Salesforce Mobile App when working remotely. “With Salesforce, our people can react and complete tasks faster to help keep the sales cycle moving forward,” added Fabritius.
Personalised journeys accelerate investor onboarding.
To meet the demand from SMEs for more loans, Fundu needs to keep growing its investor community. “There are quite a lot of steps we need to complete before we can sign up a new investor,” explained Mantila. “With Marketing Cloud, we can guide people through the onboarding journey more easily and quickly.”
Fundu uses Journey Builder to remind investors to complete certain tasks, such as providing identification documents. It also uses Email Studio to keep investors informed about new lending opportunities and send out newsletters. “Crowd funding is still new to a lot of people, so they want a lot of information,” said Mantila. “Transforming our processes and implementing Salesforce has helped to increase investor loyalty and satisfaction.”
Fundu uses Journey Builder to remind investors to complete certain tasks, such as providing identification documents. It also uses Email Studio to keep investors informed about new lending opportunities and send out newsletters. “Crowd funding is still new to a lot of people, so they want a lot of information,” said Mantila. “Transforming our processes and implementing Salesforce has helped to increase investor loyalty and satisfaction.”
Fundu processes double the number of loan applications with same resources.
To accelerate the sales and lending cycle even further, Fundu plans to launch an online community for its partners, which include banks and insurance companies. “With Community Cloud, we will be able to increase collaboration with our partners and make it easier to share leads and performance data,” added Mantila.
By pushing digitalisation to the max, Fundu has achieved a huge amount with just 10 people. In the second half of 2019, it processed twice as many applications compared with the first six months of the year without a significant increase in team members.
“The return on investment had been fantastic, ” said Mantila. “With Salesforce, we can help companies get faster access to the funds they need to keep growing and contributing to Finland’s economy.”
By pushing digitalisation to the max, Fundu has achieved a huge amount with just 10 people. In the second half of 2019, it processed twice as many applications compared with the first six months of the year without a significant increase in team members.
“The return on investment had been fantastic, ” said Mantila. “With Salesforce, we can help companies get faster access to the funds they need to keep growing and contributing to Finland’s economy.”
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