Kabbage Online lender Kabbage is considered one of Atlanta's fintech crown jewels. Now, one of their investors - Reverence Capital Partner Opportunities Fund - has received a €50M investment from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. As part of the deal, Kabbage has agreed to set up their European headquarters in Ireland to expand their footprint into Europe.

According to the ISIF website:

"The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, managed and controlled by the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), is an €8.0 billion sovereign development fund with a unique mandate. We have a statutory mandate to invest on a commercial basis in a manner designed to support economic activity and employment in Ireland. The fund’s predecessor was the National Pensions Reserve Fund (NPRF).

With €8 billion available to deploy, the Fund differs from other pools of capital in a number of key respects. It has a long investment time horizon and therefore can act as a permanent or patient source of long-term capital. It has flexibility up and down the capital structure and can therefore meet changing capital needs and gaps in the marketplace.

The Fund will seek to invest in transactions where it can make a difference, where its characteristics can enable commercial investment transactions with positive economic impact and can make it an attractive “investor of choice” for company and project sponsors and advisors...."

Ireland, of course, has famously advantageous corporate tax incentives and many American firms have rushed to set up their corporate or European offices there. They include the likes of Intel, Boston Scientific, Dell, Pfizer, Google, Hewlett Packard, Facebook and Johnson and Johnson, amongst others. Additionally, Ireland has aggressively gone after the UK fintech sector post-Brexit, and clearly has a major directive to further gain their footing in financial technology , so this transaction is a very high profile win for the country.

According to Thetimes.co.uk:

"Kabbage, a US financial technology company, will set up its European headquarters in Ireland as part of a deal between its parent company and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund.

Isif has completed a €50 million investment in Reverence Capital Partners Opportunities Fund, which focuses on investing in global, middle-market, financial services companies.

As part of Isif’s investment, Reverence said it would focus on job creation in Ireland and “seek to create high quality financial services jobs via its portfolio companies”.

Kabbage, whose headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia, specialises in automated lending through its technology and data platform."