The news was leaked last week. Now it’s official. From its Paris headquarters, Olivier Goy, founder and CEO, announced that the European lending marketplace formerly known as Lendix is changing its name into October. With this name change the company reasserts its ambition to expand both into new geographies and new products.
Why October? Among other things, the name celebrates the 4th anniversary of the company founded in October 2014. But more importantly, it is better suited to support the company’s international ambitions. Earlier this year, Lendix / October raised €32 million to fuel its international expansion. The marketplace already operates in four countries: France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands where it has helped finance more than €230 million worth of SME loans. October as a name is easy to understand, to remember and to spell in most languages.
Another important reason behind the name change is that October as a name frees the company from an exclusive association with the lending category. We can expect more announcements soon. A banking license? Bonds retail? An equity platform? We can expect the unexpected from October.
With the name change comes a complete image revamp, with new website design and new logo. The new corporate umbrella site now uses the eu suffix.
“We have a new name, October, and it brings other changes with it. We’ve been working on a new look, a new website and new products to reflect who we are: a technology company with a European outlook. Our logo is a bird taking flight, to represent what we do best: unlock all the key moments of a business’s growth.” Explains Olivier Goy, founder of October.
According to the company, October’s new design is intended to be more tech oriented, more dynamic and simpler and to better reflect the company’s mission to empower businesses by simplifying and democratizing their funding.
Therese Torris, PhD, is a Senior Contributing Editor to Crowdfund Insider. She is an entrepreneur and consultant in eFinance and eCommerce based in Paris. She has covered crowdfunding and P2P lending since the early days when Zopa was created in the United Kingdom. She was a director of research and consulting at Gartner Group Europe, Senior VP at Forrester Research and Content VP at Twenga. She publishes a French personal finance blog, Le Blog Finance Pratique.