London, 9:00 am, 18 June 2014 - IOCS (IOCS Ltd), the leading provider of electronic contract processing technology, has closed a GBP2 million Series A funding led by Notion Capital and supported by a group of specialist FinTech angel investors. This comes on the back of over £2 billion of processed transactions on IOCS’s systems over the last 12 months. The funding will be used to accelerate market execution and expand the team.

Founded in 2009 by an experienced team of industry experts, IOCS provides the world´s first turnkey e-commerce platform for the online processing of complex agreements (higher risk, higher value transactions which have traditionally necessitated some form of paper contract: e.g. credit, leasing, insurance).

In the online world, simple transactions such as card-based purchases are commonplace, but more complex and higher-value agreements predominantly revert to paper processes for execution. This adds time, administrative costs and process bureaucracy that can inhibit sales, increase fraud risk and reduce contractual enforceability.

Technologies exist for separate parts of the process (e.g. e-Identification and e-Signature), but until now there has not been an end-to-end service, offering inter-party trading. In addition, legal fears and the costs of separately buying and integrating all components required for a seamless process, have proved challenging for businesses. IOCS addresses these issues and the associated market opportunity with a simple end-to-end Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) offering.

“Despite all the hype, electronic commerce currently makes up only about 2% of the $80 trillion Gross World Product,” commented Abe Smith, Founder and CEO of IOCS. “IOCS opens up more complex and higher value transactions to genuine online execution, not only reducing costs and sales friction but also increasing enforceability and reducing risk. That is a compelling proposition for our customers.”

IOCS’s clients include some of the world’s largest automotive and other asset-based lenders, including Hitachi, Bank of Ireland & Close Bros as well other high-value commerce offerings such as BNP Paribas and Next. Clients can typically cut the time required to execute agreements in half and increase conversion by up to 25%.

“IOCS delivers turnkey e-contract execution that is providing great results with tremendous growth potential for their customers,” added Stephen Chandler, Managing Partner of Notion Capital who has joined the board of IOCS. “Whilst early adoption has focused on point-of-sale asset finance, the technology is extendable to other geographies and sectors including insurance, invoice factoring and mortgages. Each is a multi-billion dollar market in its own right and IOCS has first-mover advantage, genuine scale and momentum. We are excited to be a part of their journey.”

Having closed this new round of funding, IOCS plans to expand its team to meet increasing demand from banks, insurers and alternative lenders, as well as invest in new partnerships to further enhance their technology globally.

Julian Howison, Chairman of IOCS added “We are delighted with the syndicate we have pulled together for this funding round. Notion Capital brings unrivalled B2B SaaS expertise and our angel investors augment this with deep FinTech experience and relationships. We look forward to working closely with them all for the next chapter at IOCS.”

Learn more about IOCS by visiting http://iocs-systems.com.

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About IOCS

IOCS offers a modular, cloud-based SaaS solution incorporating all the components necessary to facilitate the automated, interparty execution of complex agreements. It enables contracting parties to do three main things: Contract Origination (e-Application, sophisticated e-ID verification document generation, e-Signature, vaulting); Process Orchestration - transaction management to automate the ways in which inter-contracting parties wish to conduct business with each other and with their end-customers; and MI / Evidence Management – gathering and process transaction data and evidence to optimise workflow and create legal enforceability.

About Notion Capital

Notion Capital is an entrepreneur-backed venture capital firm focused on high potential businesses in the Cloud Computing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) markets. The Notion partners have unique expertise and experience in the Cloud Computing market having founded, built and exited two highly successful businesses in the space – Star and MessageLabs. Companies within Notion’s portfolio include AdBrain, Brightpearl, Duedil, Idio, NewVoiceMedia, Shopa, The Currency Cloud and Tradeshift. Learn more at https://notion.vc.

Media Contact:

Shelley Driscoll: sdriscoll@notioncapital.com