Australia’s neobank Judo Bank has raked in $230m in an equity funding round to boost its liquidity and provide financial support to Covid-19 impacted clients.

The latest funding round has pushed the company’s valuation to over $1bn, making it the latest bank in Australia to receive the unicorn status.

The funding round was led by the company’s existing backers like Myer Family Investments, Bain Capital Credit, and the Abu Dhabi Capital Group.

The latest funding round brings the total amount raised by the company to date to $770m.

Moreover, the company also bagged an additional $500m injection from the Federal Government last month to boost its lending capabilities.

Judo Bank intends to use the money to strengthen its liquidity position and provide more funding to the small business clients over the next 12 months.

Judo co-founder David Hornery said: “The pipeline of new loans is strong and the bank remains well capitalised and maintains strong liquidity given its deposits, institutional funding lines and access to the government schemes.

“We now have one of the strongest capitalised tier-1 ratios in the country, and intend on rapidly growing our national footprint, and expanding the products and services we offer to thousands of Australian SMEs, whose needs have long been ignored by the major banks.”

Founded in 2016, Judo has provided $1.6bn in business loans and recorded $1.5bn in deposits. It employs 60 people who support nearly 650 customers.