The Manchester-based fintech secured £2.2m in a round led by Praetura Ventures alongside the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
"SMEs and early-stage innovators are a vital pillar of our economy and will play an important role in UK's post-pandemic recovery, but many continue to be hampered by inadequate banking services. BankiFi want to change that by putting banks at the heart of businesses' day-to-day needs. Before the pandemic, invoice cycles took a month on average, meaning most businesses didn't get paid for their services or products for more than 50 days. That delay has now increased to more than 70 days, putting immense pressure on the cashflow of many SMEs."
Experian participates in a £10m Series A round intended to fund credit protection tools for small businesses.
"Managing credit risk is central to lender activity but SME owners typically overlook it. This restricts their growth and jeopardises their survival. While the digitalisation of financial services was on course to deliver SMEs with efficient access to new capital providers, the pandemic highlighted the fragility of their supply chains. As they emerge, their ability to recover and protect capital, while boosting their appeal to the lending community will be crucial. Capital Reports will make an unprecedented and timely contribution to SMEs’ ability to survive, and grow, in the UK within the coming months, in South Africa in Q4 with more countries to follow."
The pre-seed round was backed by 10x Founders to coincide with the platform launch during freshers week.
"I believe that the next generation of students will use Huzzle to enter the world of work, because it brings clarity and convenience to a career market that has been fragmented and underserved by tech solutions."
— Robert Wuttke, Founding Partner and Managing Director
The debt financing from Crayhill Capital Management will fund the acquisition and scaling of consumer brands.
"We’ve achieved incredible growth since our launch in October 2020 and we are excited to be partnering with Crayhill Capital Management to support us on the next phase of our journey. By adding this significant amount of capital, we now have a high level of flexibility in executing on our growth plans and significantly expand and further diversify our brand portfolio. We look forward to continuing our work with the new wave of outstanding entrepreneurs to give them a fast, seller-friendly and reliable way to sell their business, so they can reap the fruits of the hard work they have put into building their brands."
The investment round was led by Ventura Capital and will accelerate international deployment of the company's diagnostic platform.
"The game-changing nature of our innovation has created an extraordinary commercial opportunity within next-generation medical diagnostics, and the global investor community is very excited by the transformative potential of a rapid, gold-standard RT-PCR testing platform that can screen for multiple viruses simultaneously. We are delighted to have completed this successful fund-raise which will allow us to dramatically speed our plans for worldwide availability, particularly in the US, Japan, Europe, and other key territories where interest is extremely high."
