Salad, described as the UK’s largest consumer lending Community Development Finance Institution (CDFI), has secured a £1.5m social impact investment from City Bridge Foundation.
The investment is enabled by a £1.2m funding guarantee from Fair4All Finance.
The partnership will unlock up to £20m in affordable and responsible lending capacity, according to the company.
Salad said this could support as many as 20,000 Londoners who are underserved by mainstream credit providers.
The investment comes through Fair4All Finance’s Guarantees Pilot for Affordable Credit, which uses funding guarantees as one instrument to encourage new sources of investment into the community finance sector.
Salad says the model is designed to unlock capital that might not otherwise be available for affordable lending by reducing risk for investors.
The deal follows a recent close of over £1.6m on Ethex, the impact investing platform, which Salad said was twice its initial target.
Retail investors have now committed just under £6m to support Salad, which the company described as the largest cumulative raise of any CDFI on the platform.
Rather than relying solely on historic credit scores, Salad uses Open Banking technology to assess an individual’s current financial circumstances and affordability.
Founded in 2018, it has lent more than £300m to over 200,000 customers and earlier this year received a King’s Award for Enterprise.
Research from Fair4All Finance shows that 46% of Londoners currently have low financial resilience.
Craig Pennington, CEO of Salad, said: “This investment is a significant milestone for Salad and an important vote of confidence in our mission to make fair and affordable credit accessible to more people who are overlooked by mainstream lenders.”
Paul Martinelli, Chair of the City Bridge Foundation Board, said: “This is one of City Bridge Foundation’s first social investments in financial inclusion and lets our resources work harder for London.”
David Coombs, Director of Investment at Fair4All Finance, said: “We’re delighted to provide this funding guarantee to City Bridge Foundation and look forward to the positive impact this new lending capacity will deliver for Salad customers across London.”
Salad was named in BusinessCloud’s 2025 FinTech 50.