Atlendis Labs is excited to announce the launch of a new borrower pool for Fluna, an alternative lending marketplace for high-growth African businesses to unlock financing and manage cash flows. The Fluna pool opens on Polygon with a $500K capacity in USDC. 

Fluna helps high-growth African exporters tap into global markets via flexible financing and global treasury solutions. Over the past 18 months, Fluna has deployed $20M+ in trade finance, funding exporters in Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia  and other countries.

Fluna’s lending marketplace allows mid-market exporters to grow their business by unlocking funding against the future receivables of their export transactions. The alternative to Fluna is working with traditional banks, however banks are only willing to provide fully collateralized loans to businesses (a requirement most African businesses are unable to meet). Additionally, the loan application process with traditional banks can take up to 6 months to process; this is not the case with Fluna, which can diligence a loan request and disburse within a week without compromising credit quality. Fluna has created a secure and flexible product that efficiently allows an exporter to unlock "trapped cash" from their future cash flows so that they can focus on growing and building their business.

Fluna’s sector-diversified trade finance portfolio includes opportunities in the agriculture, logistics, pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries. However, agriculture is a particular focus for Fluna given the high potential for economic development and female-led job creation - over 60% of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa and 23% of GDP is involved in agriculture.

“Atlendis has created a transparent process for borrowers like Fluna to secure affordable capital against the strength of our loan book performance and credit governance infrastructure,” said Miguel Sousa Dias, Co-Founder & CEO, Fluna. 

“Atlendis has leveled the playing field for high-growth, profitable African SMEs that need flexible capital in order to grow their businesses and accelerate economic development,” said Kuorkor Dzani, COO, Fluna.  

“Atlendis Labs is proud to support Fluna’s aim to democratize access to capital for the future generation of African exporters,” said Alexis Masseron, Co-Founder & CEO, Atlendis Labs. “By providing liquidity into Fluna’s pool on the Atlendis protocol, lenders can enable Fluna’s high-growth businesses customers in emerging markets to access a new source of funding, to diversify their sources of debt, to better meet their financing needs and grow operations at a contained cost.” 

Benefits for Lenders to Fluna on Atlendis

Fluna is on a mission to close the $81B trade finance gap opportunity in Africa, and it has deployed trade finance solutions to high-growth African exporters via its trade finance marketplace with zero defaults as of today. This creates the opportunity for investors to unlock an uncorrelated, high-yield real-world asset class, while creating lasting social and economic impact across the African continent. Fluna’s localized trade finance product has been built to eliminate FX exposure risk, ensure repayment directly from the end-buyer, and maintain visibility into the flow of funds. 

Atlendis lenders can lend to Fluna to diversify their portfolio and access a new asset class traditionally reserved for high net worth individuals or institutional investors. This use case is tied to real-world economic activity and can provide a sustainable source of income on lenders’ invested capital. Funding raised through Fluna’s liquidity pool on Atlendis will be used by Fluna to deploy capital directly into scaling African export businesses, improving their bottom-line, increasing local employment, and improving Africa's competitiveness across global markets. 

Advantages for Fluna on Atlendis

Fluna aims to raise additional debt to meet increasing pipeline demand and diversify its sources of debt. Thanks to the Atlendis protocol, Fluna has access to a revolving line of credit from a new source of capital. The interest rate is decided by the market through Atlendis’ innovative interest rate order book, which on the one hand enables lenders to set their preferred lending rates depending on their personal risk assessment, and on the other hand, provides flexibility to Fluna to borrow capital as needed, up to the rate that it is willing to accept.

Blockchain technology’s transparency and immutability will benefit Fluna by improving security and reducing accounting and auditing overhead. By reducing third-party financial intermediaries, Fluna also saves on operating costs, and the Polygon chain especially curbs transaction costs.

Overall, leveraging the new generation of financing technologies, Fluna’s pool on Atlendis offers a more secure, flexible, transparent and efficient source of capital to power up African exporters at competitive prices.

Visit the Fluna pool on Atlendis

About Fluna 

Fluna is a VC-backed pan-African trade finance marketplace for African business to access credit and trade market intelligence tools. The marketplace is built on a fully-digital platform allowing Fluna to underwrite 12x faster than traditional banks and automate data reporting. Fluna has onboarded 100+ exporters and deployed $20m+ in trade finance over the last 18 months. Fluna is on a mission to close the $81B trade finance gap opportunity in Africa and level the playing field for African SMEs to compete in today’s global market.

About Atlendis 

Atlendis is a capital-efficient credit protocol connecting DeFi with real-world use cases. Atlendis fills the gap that traditional finance (TradFi) has not been successfully able to cover. Leveraging blockchain technology and open banking, Atlendis enables Fintech and institutional actors to open dedicated liquidity pools and access one-time loans and revolving lines of credit, thus facilitating alternative financing for the growth and development of their SME and startup customers across the globe. Atlendis makes it possible for any lender to control their portfolio while earning real yield and making a meaningful impact helping real-world businesses.

Additional Resources

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Disclaimer

Peer-to-peer loans of digital assets through the Atlendis smart contract are subject to a loan agreement between the lender and the borrower. The loan agreement shall comply with the standards of the Atlendis protocol specified in the terms of use of the platform. In the event of default by the borrower to comply with their repayment obligations under the loan agreement, the lender shall be entitled to all legal resources provided for by the law applicable to this agreement.

Investing comes with associated risks that must be taken into account and assessed carefully before entering a lending position on the protocol. For more information, refer to Atlendis’ documentation.