Twinco Capital Closes €165 Million in Dual Funding to Institutionalise Purchase Order Finance for the First Time Globally

Twinco Capital, the Madrid and Amsterdam‑based supply chain finance fintech, has closed €165 million in combined new funding in a dual‑structured transaction that establishes a historic first in global trade finance: the world's first securitisation fund dedicated exclusively to purchase order financing. The total raise, equivalent to approximately $190 million, comprises a €15 million Series B equity round led by Dutch entrepreneurial development bank FMO and a €150 million securitisation facility structured and led by Banco Santander.

The equity round also drew in Bankinter, the Spanish banking group, as a new strategic investor, alongside follow‑on participation from existing shareholders Quona Capital and Working Capital Fund. The Series B was oversubscribed, bringing Twinco's total equity raised across its lifetime to approximately $73 million. The securitisation facility, however, is where the more significant structural milestone sits. By successfully packaging purchase order finance into an institutional‑grade securitisation vehicle, Twinco and Santander have done something the trade finance industry had previously considered structurally impossible at this scale.

What Makes This Transaction Historic

Trade finance has spent two decades finding ways to digitise and securitise invoice‑stage financing. Factoring, the practice of advancing cash against approved invoices for goods already delivered, is well‑understood, widely deployed, and institutionally accepted as a low‑risk asset class. Purchase order financing, by contrast, occurs at an earlier and operationally riskier point in the supply chain, at the moment a buyer issues an order but before a single item has been manufactured, shipped, or delivered.

The risk profile of PO finance is fundamentally different from invoice finance. At the invoice stage, goods exist, delivery is confirmed, and a legal obligation to pay is established. At the purchase order stage, the transaction is a bet on supplier execution: will the manufacturer deliver the right goods, to the right specification, on the right timeline? That uncertainty has historically made institutional investors reluctant to accept PO finance as a structured asset, and it is why no one had successfully built a securitisation fund around it before now.

Twinco's ability to achieve the €150 million Santander securitisation rests on a track record that directly addresses this risk concern. Since the company began active commercial operations, it has financed over $1 billion in transactions across 25 countries with zero losses. That performance, built on a proprietary underwriting model that assesses supplier execution risk rather than simply validating invoice legality, is what gave Santander the data and confidence to structure and anchor the facility.

Enrique Rico, Global Head of Trade and Working Capital Solutions at Banco Santander, described the transaction as an important evolution for the industry, representing the first time institutional capital has been brought into purchase order financing at scale through a securitisation structure.

The Platform and the Problem It Solves

Twinco was founded by Sandra Nolasco, who serves as CEO, and Carmen Marín, who serves as COO. Nolasco brought more than two decades of experience in trade finance across major European commercial banks. Marín contributed over 16 years of management experience in equity investing and project finance, including a period at Banco Santander. The company is one of the few European financial technology platforms co‑founded and led by women at the executive level, a fact that has drawn particular attention from impact‑oriented institutional investors.

The platform works by financing SME manufacturers in emerging markets at the earliest point of the production cycle, when a purchase order arrives from a multinational retail or consumer goods buyer. Twinco advances up to 60 percent of an order's value to the supplier at this stage, enabling them to purchase raw materials and cover initial production costs without waiting for the buyer's standard payment terms, which can run to 90 or 120 days after delivery. This upstream intervention directly addresses the working capital constraint that prevents many capable manufacturers from scaling their output or accepting larger orders.

The company is currently active in approximately 18 countries, with its deepest exposure in Bangladesh and Pakistan, two of the world's most significant apparel and textile manufacturing hubs. These markets account for a substantial share of global supply chains for major European and North American retailers, and their manufacturers typically operate with thin margins and limited access to affordable local credit. Twinco's capital, priced competitively relative to local alternatives, reaches these suppliers at the exact moment it has the most operational impact.

The platform's risk model integrates machine learning with real‑time operational data to underwrite supplier execution rather than credit history. By assessing factors including a manufacturer's production track record, buyer relationship history, and order complexity, Twinco can make lending decisions that traditional banks, relying on balance sheet data alone, cannot. This approach has also been aligned with OECD ESG standards: suppliers that demonstrate strong environmental and social compliance receive preferential credit pricing, embedding sustainability incentives directly into the financing cost rather than treating them as separate disclosure requirements.

Capital Deployment and the Trade Finance Gap

The €165 million raise significantly expands Twinco's capacity to finance suppliers globally. The €150 million securitisation facility in particular creates a scalable, revolving structure that can be drawn down repeatedly as transactions complete and repay, effectively giving Twinco access to a permanent institutional funding channel rather than a one‑time capital injection.

The broader context for the raise is the global trade finance gap, estimated at $1.7 trillion annually. This gap, the difference between the financing that international trade requires and what the banking system currently provides, disproportionately affects SME manufacturers in emerging markets. Large buyers in developed markets can access multiple financing options; small suppliers in Bangladesh or Pakistan typically cannot. Twinco's model, which works with the buyer‑supplier relationship rather than replacing it, creates a commercial pathway into this gap that generates returns while producing measurable supply chain and social impact.

The FMO's involvement as Series B lead investor is consistent with its institutional mandate. Peter Bryde, Director Private Equity at FMO, noted the bank invests in companies that combine strong commercial potential with significant long‑term impact, and that Twinco's model improves access to working capital for manufacturers and suppliers globally in exactly the way the bank's strategy requires.

Bankinter's entry as a strategic investor adds a Spanish banking relationship to the cap table at a moment when Twinco is building institutional credibility for an asset class that will need broad banking sector support to scale. With Santander now anchoring the securitisation and Bankinter participating in the equity round, Twinco has secured partnerships with two of Spain's most significant financial institutions in a single transaction.