Fasanara acquires specialist gaming/app lender Pollen VC

[London, United Kingdom, January 24, 2024] — Fasanara, a London-headquartered specialist credit asset manager and technology platform with over $4 billion in total assets, acquires a majority stake in Pollen VC, a leading provider of non-dilutive working capital to the mobile gaming/app sector.

As of 2023-end, Fasanara has integrated more than 130 fintech-powered lending platforms globally. The scale of the ecosystem shows Fasanara’s commitment to facilitating deeper market access, to the benefit of underserved/underbanked sectors, enabling Real Economy Impact.

Fasanara is proud to manage capital on behalf of predominantly institutional investors, including some of the largest pension funds and insurance companies in Europe and North America, as well as a mandate from the European Investment Fund (EIF).

Pollen VC provides revolving credit facilities to mobile app and game developers based on their receivables to help them scale, without relying on dilutive VC capital to fund their marketing spend. Pollen VC will operate as an independent digital platform within the Fasanara Group, enabling it to deploy capital into larger, more structured deals, alongside its core business of helping smaller studios scale in a capital efficient way.

Pollen VC’s unique data-driven model uses a daily API feed from the billing systems of app stores (Apple App Store, Google Play) and leading mobile advertising networks (e.g. Meta, Unity, AppLovin) rather than relying on invoices generated at the end of each month, allowing for faster access to capital in an industry where timing is everything.

Pollen VC operates globally with a focus on North America and EMEA, but is also helping companies who have their development activities in some of the emerging market hot beds of talent, including Eastern Europe and India. As venture investment in the gaming/app sector has fallen sharply, founders in the sector are more focused on capital efficient ways to grow, leading to a significantly greater appetite for debt-based financing from founders.

Pollen VC has created a strong reputation for providing financial education to founders and the finance leads of mobile app and gaming studios, creating greater awareness of different funding strategies. You can view their suite of tools to measure financial returns on mobile advertising spend at https://pollen.vc/calculators/

Francesco Filia, Founder & CEO of Fasanara said,

"We are delighted to welcome Pollen VC into the Fasanara family. After working with Martin and the team since early 2021, we have seen how this type of financing can really help gaming and app studios scale efficiently, whilst offering strong risk-adjusted returns for our investors."

Martin Macmillan, Founder & CEO of Pollen VC said,

“This transaction with Fasanara was a logical next step in our growth, enabling us to further broaden our market access and remove capital constraints. We look forward to the next chapter as part of the Fasanara Group.”

About Fasanara

Founded in 2011, Fasanara is a global asset manager and technology platform. We manage more than USD 4 billion in fintech strategies on behalf of pension funds and insurance companies in Europe and North America. With over 200 employees across five offices, we are a pioneer investor in fintech lending through our liquid alternative credit funds, enabling real economy impact. Powered by our technology platform with more than 130 fintech lenders fully integrated, originating from over 60 countries, we manage one of the largest and longest standing Fintech Lending funds in Europe. Additionally, we invest in early-stage fintech and Web 3.0 companies via our venture capital vehicles, using our central role in the fintech ecosystem to identify and back revolutionary new businesses. For more information, please visit https://www.fasanara.com/

About Pollen VC

Pollen VC provides flexible credit facilities to app and game developers using a data-driven lending model, which is designed from the ground up for the mobile app and gaming economy. Headquartered in London, United Kingdom, we help developers all over the world to take control oftheir finances and grow their business in a capital efficient way. Our team includes structured credit, capital markets and performance marketing specialists with in-depth knowledge of the mobile app and gaming market, and the growth challenges faced. For more information, please visit https://pollen.vc/