SME working capital provider TRIVER has raised a further £20 million to revolutionise how small businesses can access finance.
The deal – a £20m debt facility with Luxembourg-based Avellinia Capital – will enable TRIVER to offer over £200m of funding annually to help small businesses in the UK and further its product development.
Leveraging open banking data and sophisticated AI, TRIVER funds small business’ short-term working capital needs, underwriting the risk of small business borrowing instantly and automatically. It can provide advances on a business’s client invoices 24/7.
The £20m raise follows £7m equity funding announced in April 2023 involving Andreessen Horowitz, Stride VC, Axeleo Capital, Motive Partners, and Sequoia Capital. TRIVER subsequently launched its first prototype in May and a commercial proposition with paying customers in August.
It has already advanced invoices with a combined value of more than £1m. It says the average invoice size is £12,000 and the average duration of funding is 30 days.
“The vast majority of SMEs we interact with are willing to grant us access to their bank data via open banking,” said Jerome Le Luel, founder & CEO, a former Funding Circle chief risk officer and former global head of risk analytics for Barclays.
“They’re familiar with this tool because it is commonly used with their accounting software. They see the benefit of a simpler process than manually providing bank statements and other data. Nor do they have to make personal guarantees when applying to us.”
TRIVER says small businesses are granted a new facility within three hours of starting their application, and invoices typically take 2.5 minutes to fund.
In coming months, TRIVER plans to reduce this to sub-10 minutes to open a new facility, and less than a minute to advance an invoice. In comparison, banks typically take up to four weeks to open a facility and 24 hours to advance an invoice because of their manual processes.
Christoph Pfundstein, partner at Avellinia Capital, said: “We are proud to support TRIVER in its journey to become a significant funding provider to UK SMEs. TRIVER has by now a proven model that is set to transform the SME finance market in terms of user experience, decisioning speed, and attractive pricing.
“Credit provided by banks is slow to be approved and typically costs between 2% and 4% for a 30-day term versus 1.8% offered by TRIVER. There is enormous potential.”
Le Luel added: “In the current economic climate, we see significant demand from SMEs to access short-term cash flow financing as payment terms extend and banks tighten access to credit.
“Thanks to continuous access to open banking data, we are confident we can manage the credit risk of our customers over the short horizon of their invoices.”
TRIVER is designed to be embedded within digital service providers already serving SMEs. It has already signed 11 distribution partners since launching, spanning commercial brokers and lending platforms. These include Funding Options by Tide, Newable, Swoop, Clear Business Finance and Capitalise.
It claims to be in conversations with prospective partners in other sectors including banks, accounting software, insurance, utilities, and FX, and plans to launch more partnerships in the coming months.