Hokodo

Hokodo, founded in London in 2018 by Louis Carbonnier, Richard Thornton and Sami Ben Hatit, provided embedded trade credit and buy-now-pay-later for B2B merchants and marketplaces, combining credit scoring, financing, insurance and collections in one API. It operated in ten European countries, financed more than €500 million of invoices and served over 100,000 business buyers, with Paris and London offices. It raised €10 million in 2021 and a €37 million round led by Notion Capital in 2022, backed by a large debt facility from Viola Credit. The founders said the company had taken too long to narrow its focus, scaled before it had earned it and carried too much product complexity, and decided to wind down in late 2025. The closure was reported in April 2026 and Hokodo Services Ltd, the regulated trading entity, entered members' voluntary liquidation on 14 May 2026 with a declaration of solvency.

Operations ceased after an orderly wind-down in late 2025. Nicholas Timpson and Joyce Thomson of Interpath were appointed joint liquidators of Hokodo Services Ltd on 14 May 2026 in a solvent members' voluntary liquidation; the holding company Hokodo Ltd remains active. The three co-founders have launched Liquidity Lab, an AI-focused trade-credit consultancy.

Volume is not the same as a durable business: half a billion euros of financed invoices did not produce unit economics that justified the next round. The founders' own diagnosis was focus, premature scaling and product sprawl, and they chose a solvent wind-down over a distressed one.