Evaluating only Spotcap’s profile at its peak — without knowing the outcome — the model ranked Unit economics as the #1 likely cause. That’s exactly how it died.
Key Events Timeline
FOUNDING
FUNDING
CRISIS
SHUTDOWN
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Documented cause
Spotcap was founded in Berlin in 2014 by Rocket Internet and Finleap as an online lending platform for small and medium businesses, offering flexible credit lines based on business performance data. The company raised approximately €65M and expanded to the Netherlands, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand. But SMB online lending requires sophisticated credit models calibrated over years of data, and Spotcap's early loan books experienced higher-than-expected default rates as it competed for customers with incumbent banks that had more capital to absorb losses. The company filed for insolvency in Germany in April 2019 after failing to raise a new funding round.
Lesson
“In lending, time in market builds the credit data and default models that make the business viable — fast geographic expansion before your credit model is calibrated is a recipe for losses.”