Member Article

Funding Options Limited secures £500k equity funding

Funding Options Limited has secured a £500k venture capital investment from a syndicate led by The North West Fund for Digital & Creative.

The fund is supported by previous investors Ric Traynor, founder of Begbies Traynor Group, and Alan Morgan, co-founder of MMC Ventures.

Funding Options acts like a comparison site for business finance, enabling firms and their advisors to easily access a wide range of products and providers.

This is critical for the UK economy, with a recent survey finding that one-third of firms believe better education about bank alternatives is vital to improving business funding.

Recognising its success in addressing this challenge, in 2013 Funding Options was selected by Lord Young and Sir Terry Leahy for the ‘Accelerate 250’ list of the UK’s most promising new firms.

Funding Options has a unique and sophisticated web platform that allows applicants to quickly create a professional finance application incorporating key information such as their accounting data.

This technology is of particular value for firms needing short-term and working capital finance, a poorly-served segment that represents more than half of all business finance, and is particularly important to the UK economy’s fastest-growing sectors.

Funding Options Limited intends to use the investment to support its rapidly growing customer base by building a commercial sales and front-end technical team in the North West, taking advantage of the region’s particular strength in the commercial lending market.

Conrad Ford, founder and CEO, said: “Funding Options is focussed on getting the right finance to the UK SMEs, something that the last few years has shown is vital to the UK’s economic future. The North West is recognised throughout the UK as a centre of excellence in business finance, so we’re very excited to be supporting the next phase of our rapid growth from such a deep pool of talent.”

David Smith, investment director, AXM Venture Capital, which manages The North West Fund for Digital & Creative, said: “We are delighted to be able to support such a high calibre management team with its expansion plans in the North West – it is a testimony to the region’s commercial and technical strengths.”

The North West Fund for Digital & Creative is part of The North West Fund and is financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the European Investment Bank.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Graham Vincent .