‘Pay as you use’ fintech eyes broker channel

The start-up, which is currently solely focused on yellow goods financing alongside “small- and medium-sized entity heavy machinery businesses”, utilises real-time technology to provide an operating lease with a repayment rate dependent on how, and to what extent, an asset is used. 

As confirmed to The Adviser, this real-time view of an asset’s depreciation is monitored by coaXion daily, with borrowers being provided with a monthly repayment schedule. 

Borrowers are also offered the opportunity to purchase the asset following the conclusion of the lease.

Earlier this month (18 March), coaXion closed its Pre-Series A funding at $2.65 million, exceeding past its original $1.5 million for initial commercialisation. 

The start-up has said its Series A funding round is currently planned towards the end of the calendar year. 

Co-founder and chief technology officer Chris Maycock said that he believes coaXion will disrupt the Australian equipment finance, adding that this market has been slow to adapt.

“Other markets are more advanced in using software to drive usage-based finance: for example, the European and US trucking sectors are using finance based on kilometres or fuel burn,” Mr Maycock said.

“coaXion’s machine learning algorithms deliver variable pricing and variable terms based on how, and how much, the asset is being utilised.”

CEO Colin Armbruster said that 22 per cent of Australia’s commercial equipment finance market is for yellow goods, accounting for roughly $9 billion.

He also noted that coaXion’s model offers customers balance-sheet flexibility. 

“The customer benefits with improved cash flow, term flexibility and being able to redeploy capital. The financier benefits from better asset risk management and being able to offer an innovative product,” he explained.

“As we seek the right go-to-market partners, we are actively talking to equipment dealers and yellow goods asset finance brokers about the opportunities our variable ‘pay as you use it’ model offers them.”

Speaking to The Adviser, Mr Armbruster expanded on this point, noting that coaXion’s model will allow for a variable repayment model that will “more closely align their repayments to their cash flow”, in turn shifting risk away from customers. 

“If we use an excavator for an example, if it’s sitting around idling… and it’s at low intensity, we’re charging them less on a minute-by-minute basis,” Mr Armbruster said.

“So the repayments will align up to the cash flow of the business.”

Mr Armbruster said that the fintech is intending to bring a second “straight line repayment offering” to market that allows borrowers to “reaccess and redraw a percentage of the equity they’ve built in the asset”.

However, the CEO also added that the start-up is looking to work with the broking sector, given that brokers “already have that credibility and trust of their customers”, adding that he believes it’s “important for the whole industry to get a handle of usage-based finance”.

“If you look at what’s happening in other parts of the world, there’s a paid uptake to move down this path of financing the asset based on how it’s used,” Mr Armbruster said, drawing parallels to this model and the wider subscription economy trend. “And as well the Industry 4.0 Revolution where everything is starting to be driven by data from endpoints, such as sensors on the assets.”

[Related: FAST brokers achieve new commercial lending record]