October is the #1 SME lending platform in France and continental Europe. Its mission is to empower businesses to thrive by simplifying and democratizing their funding. October was born in France at the end of 2014, thanks to a new regulation opening up the banking monopoly.
Today, it operates as a pan-European lending platform with offices in France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany.
With more than 23 million companies to date, representing more than 90 million jobs, SMEs are the heart of the European economy. October's mission is to support their growth by efficiently matching private and institutional lenders to their financing needs. Lenders invest their savings usefully and profitably to facilitate the funding of the real economy whilst businesses find fast and simple sources of finance complementary to banks.
In 2020, October launched October Connect: the tech & data toolbox to enrich SME risk analysis for investors. To build October Connect, October leveraged more than 200,000 SME financing requests and back tested its own Machine Learning scorings on financial, behavioural and banking data. October Connect’s ambition is to help investors focus on high potential clients, reduce time-to-yes and protect their portfolio by detecting fraud attempts. October Connect is now available as a SaaS platform (with a modular approach) and as an end-to-end lending solution.
In 2017, October was ranked in the KPMG and H2 Ventures Fintech100 for the second consecutive year. And in 2019 and 2020, October was listed among the 40 high-potential French technology companies of the Next40.
About the founders/CEO:
Patrick de Nonneville is Co-Founder and CEO of October. He began his career at JPMorgan in Paris and London (1997-2003) as a “market-maker” on Treasuries, before joining Deutsche Bank (2003-2007) where he led the complex products trading activities and Inflation products. Patrick is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique. As a Partner at Goldman Sachs in London (2007 to 2014), Patrick was co-head of the European rates business and member of the Global Operating Committee for Rates.
Thorsten Seeger is the COO of October and the CEO of October Germany.
Before joining October, he was the Managing Director of Funding Circle Germany,
where he built a market leading small business lending proposition. Prior to
that, he spent 10 years in the traditional banking sector in the UK. At
Barclays he held various front office leadership roles, including Head of
Relationship Banking (London) and Commercial Director for SME Banking and at
Lloyds Banking Group he was responsible for Financial Markets products and
their distribution to SME customers. Thorsten holds an MBA from China Europe
International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai.”
Olivier Goy is Co-Founder and Chairman at October. In 2000, Olivier Goy launched his first company, 123 Investment Managers (formerly 123Venture), a private equity fund dedicated to retail investors. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of 123Investment Managers until September 2014, he is currently Chairman of the Supervisory Board. Prior to 123 Investment Managers, Olivier was an Associate at Partech! Olivier is a graduate of EM Strasbourg / HEC Montréal (Canada) and holder of the DECF.
Today, Olivier also serves as Vice President of the “France Fintech” association and is a regular guest speaker on SMEs financing and Fintech topics.