SME working capital provider TRIVER has secured up to £114 million to revolutionise how UK small businesses can access finance.
The London-based FinTech firm leverages open banking data and AI to underwrite the risk of small business borrowing instantly and automatically. It says it can provide advances on a business’s client invoices 24/7.
Small businesses are said to be granted a new facility within 10 minutes of starting their application, and invoices typically take less than five minutes to fund. Fees start at 1.8% for a 30-day invoice.
The firm says that in comparison, banks generally take up to four weeks to open a facility and 24 hours to advance an invoice because of their manual processes.
TRIVER was founded in 2023 by a team led by Jerome Le Luel, former Funding Circle chief risk officer and global head of risk analytics for Barclays. It currently serves 1,500 clients and has financed more than 17,000 invoices worth £180m since launch.
Its £114m financing is part equity – a £14m Series A round led by AlleyCorp, with the support of Axeleo Capital, Inkberry Ventures, Stride VC, and others – and part debt facility secured with HSBC Innovation Banking UK and Avellinia Capital.
HSBC Innovation Banking has provided £35m in debt financing, with an additional £35m potentially available in the future, subject to credit approval, while Avellinia Capital has extended its facility to £30m.
The facility includes the backing of the British Business Bank through its partnership with Avellinia to boost funding for UK FinTech lenders.
It brings TRIVER’s total VC investment to date to £21m and increases its combined debt facility from £20m to £65m, potentially rising to £100m. This will enable it to offer £1bn of funding annually to help small businesses in the UK, it claims.
It has also announced a new partnership with online accounting software provider Xero to enable the latter’s customers to turn their client invoices into instant cash flow via their Xero accounts.
“We solve one of the biggest problems in the real economy – suppliers and staff need to be paid on time, yet clients take time to pay,” said Le Luel.
“With 55 days of average payment terms, UK small businesses are constantly owed £150bn in commercial invoices waiting to be paid. TRIVER allows these businesses to turn their client invoices into instant cash flow, at any time, to fund working capital needs. This is the most flexible and cost-effective solution to smooth cash flow without taking new debt.
“Using AI and open banking, we’ve completely revolutionised how this works while ensuring transactions are secure. The significant financing we’ve announced means we can accelerate our growth and help even more British small businesses to thrive.”
Clare Mitchell, director, FinTech at HSBC Innovation Banking UK, said: “We’re delighted to be supporting TRIVER with this new facility, enabling the company to continue to scale its cashflow finance offering to an ever-growing number of small businesses across the UK.”