Mikkel Velin is co-founder and co-chief executive of YouLend, the London, England, company that lets payment firms and marketplaces offer loans and cash advances to their small-business merchants. He trained as a lawyer in Denmark and managed high-yield credit in London before starting YouLend in 2016. Read our review of YouLend.
Law in Copenhagen, Denmark
He qualified as a lawyer in Denmark and worked in mergers, acquisitions, and finance at Bech-Bruun, the Copenhagen law firm, and taught as an external lecturer at the University of Copenhagen. From 2006 to 2011 he also gave free legal advice to people on low incomes at Copenhagen Legal Aid, according to YesPress.
High-Yield Credit at Rogge Global Partners
He spent seven years as a partner and high-yield portfolio manager at Rogge Global Partners, a London asset manager later bought by Allianz Global Investors. After the 2008 financial crisis, he saw that banks had pulled back and small businesses had far fewer ways to borrow.
Seven Employees and One Standing Desk
He met Mark Ufland, who could build a platform to read a business's sales data and automate lending decisions. "We began as seven employees, two computer screens, and one standing desk in 2016," he told PaySpace Magazine, adding that Ufland built the first platform in his bedroom.
YouLend's model puts funding inside the platforms merchants use every day. "We are not core to our partners, but they are core to us," he said.
