New Platform Receives Backing to Unlock Liquidity in Private Lending

2026-09-19 digital

Amsterdam, Saturday 19 September 2026
Backed by Maven 11, Tenka has raised capital to launch a secondary market that allows investors to trade private credit loans without forcing borrowers to repay early.

A Novel Approach to Private Credit Illiquidity

On Thursday, 17 September 2026, London-based fintech startup Tenka announced the successful closure of its pre-seed funding round [2][5]. The funding round, which raised $2 million according to market reports [6], was led by Amsterdam-based venture capital firm Maven 11 [1][2][5]. The investment round also secured participation from Swiss-based Gami Capital SA alongside several strategic angel investors [1][2][4][5]. The capital injection is earmarked to build a permissioned marketplace and transaction infrastructure designed to bring liquidity to the historically rigid asset-backed finance sector [2][5][6].

Bridging the Gap Between Origination and Secondary Trading

Private credit and asset-backed finance power critical real-economy activities, ranging from consumer loans to equipment leases [4]. However, the sector has long suffered from a structural liquidity bottleneck, where investors are constrained by long lock-up periods, restricted fund-level redemptions, and bilateral sales [4]. Tenka, which was founded in 2026 by CEO Emile Dubié, aims to resolve this friction by building an integrated market platform that links initial underwriting and structured book-building with continuous price discovery and secondary trading [2][5]. This allows investors to transfer their exposure based on market demand, without forcing borrowers to repay their loans early or requiring funds to finance exits [2][4].

Strategic Collaborations and Onchain Infrastructure

To achieve this seamless transfer of exposure, Tenka is partnering with Tranched, leveraging their specialised onchain securitisation expertise [1][2][4]. This collaboration will enable Tenka to deliver consistent collateral reporting, transparent independent valuations, and highly efficient settlement processes directly onchain [1][2][4][6]. By combining structured book-building at origination with an active secondary market, the platform hopes to attract untapped pools of capital [1][2][4]. Alexander Essle, Principal at Maven 11, highlighted that private credit struggles far more with illiquidity than asset quality, noting that Tenka’s model unlocks a brand-new form of capital formation for originators while granting LPs unprecedented strategic flexibility [1][2].

Looking Ahead to the 2026 Launch

Tenka’s connected market platform is currently under active development and is scheduled to launch later this year, with an expectation to be live by 31 December 2026 [1][2][5]. The platform will function as an institutional dealing infrastructure linking asset originators, institutional investors, and liquidity providers [5][6]. By facilitating the trading of asset-backed finance instruments without altering the terms of the underlying loans, Tenka is positioned to modernise the digital economy’s back-end financial plumbing [3][5]. This development represents a significant step forward in the ongoing tokenisation and digitalisation of legacy financial systems [GPT].

Sources & Ecosystem Partners

venture capital decentralised finance