ThinCats unveils £100m funding programme for UK SMEs
PEER-TO-PEER business lending platform ThinCats has launched a £100m funding programme for private equity-backed UK firms.
The fintech lender says it has almost £1bn of capital to invest in UK small businesses and is seeing increasing demand to fund larger deals of up to £15m.
Read more: ThinCats has £800m “ready to deploy” for UK SMEs
The new funding programme follows a series of recent loans the platform has made to businesses in partnership with leading private equity houses.
In January, ThinCats provided a £5m funding package for Flat Iron, a restaurant chain backed by consumer brands specialist Piper. ThinCats has also worked with Revolve Technologies to help fund its retail and US expansion, backed by Rockpool Investments
The platform says it provides funding to UK businesses across the full risk spectrum and in all regions and sectors, from £250,000 to £15m, with the aim of simplifying the traditional bank-dominated commercial lending model.
Read more: ThinCats secures first funding line from British Business Bank
“Our mission is to level the playing field for British businesses whose growth ambitions are being held back by traditional lending models,” Damon Walford, chief development officer at ThinCats, said.
“We have helped a number of private equity houses with both portfolio businesses and new investments over the past year and this new funding programme will provide valuable transparency, clarity and structure to support entrepreneurs with their immediate and longer-term growth plans.”
Read more: ThinCats analysis of SME loans in 2018 affirms data model