FAQs

Whether you are the leader of a growing business, an introducer in search of a lender, or an investor meeting us for the first time, our strong track record at lending to fast-growth SMEs is what sets us apart.

Because we are a specialist, we consider every investment on a deal-by-deal basis, with decisions made by humans rather than machines. This flexible, people-first approach enables us to be agile and responsive, creating truly tailored lending solutions that fit specific needs of a business.

When it comes to funding growing businesses, we consider ourselves to be the trusted partner of the most ambitious firms.

But Growth Lending is about so much more than that – you can read more about the people that make our business so unique, as well as the story of how we got here, on the About Us page.

Flexible invoice discounting enables you to leverage your entire sales ledger, or a chosen pool of debtors, by using unpaid accounts receivables as collateral for the facility. By freeing up the working capital tied up in unpaid invoices, you can then invest in growth, expansion, recruitment and acquisitions, all while retaining responsibility for your sales ledger and invoice processing.

After you have completed our straightforward online process, we aim to respond with an indicative offer within 24 hours. You then simply select the debtors you want to fund and upload the corresponding invoices to our online portal. These invoices will contribute to your available balance and you will be able to begin drawing down funds.

Selective invoice finance works more like traditional factoring, where you choose which invoices you want to advance funds against and when.

With a flexible invoice discounting facility, you can leverage multiple debtors or your whole sales ledger to raise a larger total sum and then draw down as much as you like from this sum as and when you need it.

Where selective invoice financing provides funds on an invoice-by-invoice basis, flexible invoice discounting offers a lending base from which you can draw down funds.

Both types of facility free up working capital and give you the flexibility to manage your own credit, but each will suit different types of business model.

You must be a company registered in the UK, US, Singapore or the Benelux countries, with B2B debtors on payment terms of up to 120 days.

Your debtors must be registered in an OECD country, with some exceptions (*Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Serbia, Slovakia and Turkey).

With flexible invoice discounting, you retain complete control of your cash flow and are therefore responsible for recovering outstanding payments. An additional benefit of this feature is that the service provided by Growth Lending can be kept confidential, so you do not need to inform your debtors.

Invoice finance is when a lender utilises an unpaid invoice as security for funding, giving you immediate access to a percentage of the invoice’s value.

Many lenders will provide funding against your whole sales ledger, but this is usually referred to as flexible invoice discounting instead.

Invoice finance releases capital tied up in invoices, enhancing your cash flow and enabling you to pay staff and suppliers and reinvest in operations and growth earlier.

Selective invoice finance gives you the flexibility to fund individual invoices. Simply select the invoices you want to fund and decide when the funds are released, putting you in control of your cash flow for a low service fee.

Selective invoice finance is sometimes referred to as spot factoring, spot invoice finance or single invoice factoring, in reference to the flexibility of the facility.

In certain markets, these terms are associated with slightly different products, where spot factoring or single invoice factoring refer to the funding of specific individual invoices.

Our selective invoice finance product gives you the flexibility to fund whatever proportion of invoices you choose, freeing up working capital and retaining control of your cash flow.

After you have completed our straightforward online onboarding process, we aim to respond with an indicative offer within 24 hours.

One of our lending experts will work with you to understand your cash flow requirements and get you onboarded in no time.

With selective invoice finance, Growth Lending does not impose a minimum contract period or minimum income criteria and we do not restrict funding based on concentration, making our product more accessible than many similar options on the market.

The flexibility of selective invoice finance also means that you can often access a greater advance rate than is offered by alternative lending products, as you select the individual invoices or debtors to be financed.

It also gives you more control over your cash flow, as you can leverage individual invoices, or groups of invoices, depending on your working capital requirements.

Traditionally, invoice factoring requires a business to sell its whole sales ledger to a third-party factoring company. This firm takes on the debt in its entirety, freeing up working capital for the business. With factoring, the lender usually becomes responsible for chasing debtors and recovering payments.

Invoice finance on the other hand, does not require the sale of a whole ledger, with payments advanced by the lender on an invoice-by-invoice basis. Working this way also means that you retain responsibility for debtor payments, keeping closer control of your cash flow.

You must be a company registered in the UK, US, Singapore or a Benelux country, with B2B debtors on payment terms of up to 120 days.

Your debtors must be registered in an OECD country, with some exceptions (Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Serbia, Slovakia and Turkey).

With selective invoice finance, you retain complete control of your cash flow and are therefore responsible for recovering outstanding payments.

We can fund alongside other lenders, funding the overseas invoices while they retain the UK invoice finance. However, your existing lender may have to consent to the facility.

We can also offer standalone facilities overseas, with no requirement to fund a linked UK entity, so can work flexibly to meet your needs.

Growth Lending is in the US too! Use the button in the top right corner of our website to visit our US page, or use this link to contact a member of our US lending team.

Any invoice we fund must be fully unencumbered. We regularly take security but are happy to rank behind other charge-holders or lenders, as long as we have priority over the receivables we are funding.

Term loans are designed to help your firm grow by providing flexible funds that can be used in the way you see fit. For example, you may wish to fund mergers and acquisitions (M&A) or research and development (R&D), strengthen your working capital position, invest in expansion, or refinance an existing loan.

With a term loan from Growth Lending you can access £2m to £10m, which can be drawn down in tranches throughout the term of the loan – usually three to five years. We don’t require a seat on your board, so our term loans also enable you to stay in the driver’s seat.

This type of capital is ideal for companies with ambitious targets for growth (whether organic or acquisitive) and can be used to support firms operating in a variety of sectors.

A term loan can be used for anything from equipment, real estate or working capital, but at Growth Lending, our term loans usually focus on strategies for accelerating growth.

Popular reasons to borrow include:

• Working capital
• Website and marketing
• Fulfilling a new contract
• Investing in stock and equipment
• National or international expansion
• Refinancing an existing loan

To secure a term loan from Growth Lending you must have a proven business model with revenues of more than £2m. Your business must be registered in the UK, have a trading history of more than 12 months and operate a B2B business model.

Our term loans are most suitable for businesses that are growing quickly and particularly for those in the technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) sector, although most sectors will be considered.

Profitability is not essential, but you should be able to demonstrate how your business will get there.

Usually, a personal guarantee is not required for a term loan from Growth Lending. Instead, we secure our term loans via a debenture, enabling your business to access capital without providing collateral or diluting equity.

Acquiring another business can be a quick and efficient way to secure growth, but it often requires more cash than a firm’s normal operating budget.

Acquisition finance refers to the funding used specifically to purchase another business.

Usually complex in structure, acquisition finance requires a tailored approach and the acquisition itself requires thorough planning.

The financing of an acquisition can come from multiple sources, with one of the key challenges finding the appropriate mix of financing that offers the lowest cost.

Acquiring another business enables you to expand your company’s reach geographically and demographically, as well as streamline and increase your economies of scale. You can also strengthen your own position too, by purchasing a competitor or their assets.

Utilising business acquisition finance to acquire a business can help to increase market share, bringing significant economies of scale, which can help to reduce your unit cost. It can also help to minimise risk in your business, via diversification of market or technology. Business acquisitions also help to accelerate the adoption of new skills and technologies across the existing workforce.

Our funding offers flexibility so that you can use funds for whatever you feel will best support your firm’s growth.

This means that rather than having to apply for separate acquisition-specific finance, you can encompass acquisitions into the strategy for your existing funding lines. This also means you can borrow larger sums for multiple uses at once – for example, making a strategic acquisition, while also raising working capital.