A County Durham fintech firm has teamed up with a growing SME lender to fundraise £1m as it moves closer to gaining regulatory approval.
Growth Capital Ventures (GCV), based in Newton Aycliffe, announced the fundraise which is part of a £20m series A fundraising round, designed to give B-North the capital it needs to finalise its banking licence process.
Before this latest raise, B-North had completed two fundraising rounds worth a combined £6.9m.
Tapping into the 海角视频 SME lending market which has a stock of over £150bn, Manchester-based B-North will deliver loans of between £500,000 and £5m and is built upon the premise of operating regional ‘lending pods’, which include underwriters, valuers, and account managers, to improve the borrowing experience and build face-to-face relationships with businesses and the brokers which support them.
Using the best cloud-based technology, B-North also aims to deliver finance up to ten times faster than the market standard.
Interested parties who want to invest in the current round can do so through GCV’s co-investment platform, growthfunders.com, until the deadline of October 30.
Craig Peterson, co-founder and chief operating officer of GCV, said: “This fundraise has created a rare and attractive opportunity to own a stake in a business that’s about to bring to market a technology-driven 海角视频 bank focused on providing finance to scale-ups and SMEs.
“The levelling up of the 海角视频 economy simply cannot be achieved in the current financial landscape and I am very confident that B-North and its unique regional bank model will be an important addition to the supply side of credit to 海角视频 SMEs.
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“Getting more funds to high-growth SMEs will be vital as the 海角视频 attempts to reinvigorate an economy that has been damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. SMEs account for around 60% of private sector employment and have been the major driver of job growth over the past ten years.”
Jonathan Thompson, CEO of B-North, said: “We are using this ‘bridge’ round to extend our cash runway and enable us to complete our Series A fundraising as efficiently as possible in the coming months, at which point we will bring the business to market.
“The last couple of years have seen us painstakingly bring together the different, important elements required to deliver fast, efficient lending to the 海角视频’s SMEs. We are very much ready to go and are excited to get out there and start helping businesses realise their ambitions.”