Prospa's own first loan was small: A$20,000, written in 2012 for a business owner whom the banks had passed over.
The two men behind it knew exactly what that owner felt like. Greg Moshal began in a family business before running his own, and the struggle to get finance was familiar to him. Beau Bertoli had spent five years at FlexiGroup, the listed financial services company, and by his own count Prospa was the fourth business he had started. They were introduced by a mutual friend and bonded, as the story goes, over the pitfalls of small business and money.
The company's float was delayed days before opening after the corporate regulator raised concerns about the fairness of its contracts.
Moshal holds a Bachelor of Commerce in accounting from Monash University. Together they pitched an online lender for small firms, with seed backing from Entree Capital.
The idea was straightforward. Banks asked for property security and weeks of paperwork. Prospa asked for a few data points and decided quickly, using a credit engine that now weighs more than 450 signals. Loans ran from A$5,000 to A$1 million. It grew into Australia's largest fintech lender, and AirTree put in A$25 million in 2017 at a valuation of A$235 million.
Then came the stumble. The company's float was delayed days before opening after the corporate regulator raised concerns about the fairness of its contracts. The delay lasted about twelve months. It re-emerged and listed on the ASX on 11 June 2019, selling 29 million shares at A$3.78 to raise A$109.6 million. The shares rose 18% on debut, and the company was valued at about A$610 million.
The price of public life came quickly. The pandemic hit small business borrowers hard, and by 2024 the shares were trading around A$0.45, far below the IPO price. A Salter Brothers Tech Fund-led consortium took the company private that year.
Prospa has kept going. In 2024 it bought the Zip Business loan book of about 370 small businesses, and in March 2026 it partnered with Qantas Business Rewards.
The insight for a founder is unsentimental. A float can validate a business and still not protect it from a bad cycle, and a company built to lend to the smallest, most fragile firms carries their risk in its own numbers.