UK business challenger bank Allica Bank has secured ?55m in fresh funding, just seven months after raising ?110m in its Series B.
Of the fresh capital injection, ?30m was supplied by British Business Investments, a subsidiary of the British Business Bank.
This Tier 2 capital facility is part of the British Business Investments mission to increase the supply and diversity of finance for small businesses across the UK by boosting the lending capacity of challenger banks and non-bank lenders.
The remaining ?25m of the investment was supplied by existing investors Warwick Capital Partners and Atalaya Capital Management.
With this fresh ?55m, Allica Bank plans to bolster its growth efforts.??
The FinTech company supplies UK SMEs with lending options. In 2021, the company issued over ?560m in SME loans, which was 12-times higher than 2020. It expects to complete ?3bn of lending in the next three years.
Allica Bank CEO Richard Davies said, ?The new facility from British Business Investments alongside further equity from our existing lead investors will enable Allica Bank to support and scale even more of Britain established SMEs and growth companies at a time when SMEs are looking for more tailored support from their bank.
?Allica is fast becoming the SME challenger bank of choice through combining our proprietary technology with experienced local relationship managers to provide great customer experience. Looking ahead, we are hugely excited about our plans to develop Allica customer proposition as we continue our mission to reimagine relationship banking for SMEs.span>
The British Business Investments was established in 2014 and since then, it has committed over ?3bn to UK small business lenders.
Allica Bank previously raised ?110m for its Series B round in November 2021.
Another UK-focused SME lending platform MarketFinance also closed fresh funding this past month. It bagged ?100m in debt from Deutsche Bank to provide working capital to SMEs.
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