Meet a female founded fintech powering sustainable supply chains

Twinco Capital, a supply chain fintech, is one of the few European high-growth fintechs led by women. The company offers the first sustainable supply chain finance solution in the market that covers purchase order funding. The company was cofounded by Sandra Nolasco (CEO) and Carmen Marín (COO), and is based between Amsterdam and Madrid.

There is a staggering 2.5 trillion dollar global trade finance gap that mainly affects SMEs in emerging countries, limiting their ability to access new business opportunities. Helping businesses to bridge this finance gap, supply chain fintech Twinco Capital announced on Tuesday that it secured an additional 50 million euro facility with BBVA Spark to accelerate growth.

To date the business has provided over 250 million dollars in funding to suppliers in emerging markets.

"We are very pleased to support Sandra and Carmen, two entrepreneurs who have reinvented, with Twinco, the way supply chains are financed on a global scale by incorporating innovative environmental and social criteria into their supplier financing model" explains Roberto Albaladejo, head of BBVA Spark, an initiative that has more than 800 clients and facilitated 250 million euros in financing in just one year of operation.

Twinco is a venture-backed business, with investors such as Quona Capital, Working Capital Fund, Mundi Ventures, Finch Capital. On the debt side, BBVA Spark will become one of Twinco’s key financial partners and joins EBN Banco de Negocios who has been supporting the Company from its inception, and Zubi Capital.

Sandra Nolasco commented: “We are thrilled to partner with BBVA Spark to help customers build truly sustainable and competitive global supply chains. It is only by partnering with this calibre of like-minded, financial institutions, that we will be able to address large-scale challenges like the one Twinco has set out to solve: closing the trade finance gap. This facility will support the company’s portfolio growth, expanding both the number of customers and geographies.”

Twinco Capital engages with large corporations—mostly in the retail and apparel sectors—and offers funding to their suppliers worldwide, advancing up to 60 percent of the purchase order value upfront and paying the remainder upon delivery. The process is designed to be a fully transparent that provides the suppliers with funding for its purchase orders within 48 hours. The key to its success is its unique risk model, which complements the traditional view of financial risk with business performance and ESG data. In other words, it uses machine learning to assess the quality and strength of the commercial relationships between these large buyers and their suppliers.

In the past four years Twinco Capital has experienced significant growth, with more than 150 suppliers from 13 different countries joining the platform. The company has played a crucial role in supporting global trade, particularly during the pandemic, and has funded millions of purchase orders.

Carmen Marin added: “The value added Twinco is providing to customers stems from the combination of its unique funding solution with business intelligence that provides a holistic overview of supply chain risk. Technology and machine learning provide invaluable data insights on commercial, financial and ESG suppliers’ performance, giving our customers a state-of-the-art supply chain risk management tool.”

About Twinco Capital

Sandra Nolasco is an experienced banker with over 20 years of international career experience in major European commercial banks, specializing in trade finance. Her co-founder, Carmen Marín, brings over 16 years of management experience in equity investing and project finance from Banco Santander. Twinco Capital's partnership with BBVA Spark marks an important step in bridging the global trade finance gap, helping SMEs in emerging countries access the resources they need to thrive.