This Entrepreneur's Bankruptcy Sparked The Idea For His Credit Correcting Company | Forbes

In 2020, Robert Plasco launched his personal loan company to lend cash to millennials with low or no credit scores. He learned about the opportunity the hard way. An immigrant from New Zealand, Plasco moved to London to work in finance. Lacking the credit history needed for a loan, he turned to high-interest credit cards to cover the city's notoriously high cost of living. "In 2017, I went bankrupt and had to go through a number of methods to get my life back on track," says Plasco. "The pain drove me to set up Plend for people who can't access affordable credit." Plend, cofounded with James Pursaill, ditches traditional credit scores and instead uses a mix of indicators to offer cheaper loans to customers who would otherwise be charged high, subprime interest rates. "We look at new data points such as what you earn, which industry you work in, how you spend your money and are you paying your subscriptions on time?" says Plasco. Investors have given his new scoring system high marks. In November 2022, Plasco raised $45 million in seed capital from funds including Active Partners, Sivo, Velocity Juice, Tomahawk VC and DD Venture Capital.

Even a difficult year marred by the ongoing war in Ukraine, a pressing energy crisis, rocketing inflation and a barrage of natural disasters couldn’t slow down Europe’s youngest visionary leaders. In a historically tough environment, the 300 founders and entrepreneurs featured on our 2023 Forbes Under 30 Europe list raised more than $3 billion in capital—$1 billion more than our 2022 class. Europe's brightest founders are putting the cash to work, building bold companies that are out to combat climate change, fight fraud, reinvent the banking industry and better treat infections.

To compile our eighth annual list, Forbes writers and editors combed through thousands of online submissions, and tapped industry experts and list alumni for recommendations. Candidates were evaluated by Forbes staff and a panel of independent, expert judges (including beauty entrepreneur and Bliss Spa founder Marcia Kilgore, musician Joy Crookes and Zepz, formerly WorldRemit, founder Ismail Ahmed) on a variety of factors, including (but not limited to) funding, revenue, social impact, scale, inventiveness and potential. All final listers must have been 29 or younger as of March 7, 2023.

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