Not just
another lender…
At Growth Lending we’re a little bit different.
Many of the diverse and knowledgeable people in our team left roles at traditional financial institutions to help us deliver our ultimate goal of accelerating the growth of exceptional businesses like yours.
We have a unique understanding of the challenges that fast-growing businesses must overcome, because we have faced many of them ourselves. This experience underpins our lending approach, enabling us to provide a stepping stone to your success.
Like the businesses we support, we have been on quite a growth journey – keeping reading to find out more about our team, our culture and the story of Growth Lending…
Meet our people
The Growth Lending team is energetic, entrepreneurial and diverse. We speak multiple languages and our experience spans six continents. We left corporate jobs to work in an exciting, growing firm – just like the ones we want to fund.
Our culture
Our People team has worked closely with our organisational psychologist to capture Growth Lending’s culture, with our cultural qualities reflected in our lending approach and everything that we do.
From diligent and robust client processes, to a holistic approach to Environmental, Social and Governance, these qualities align all of our people to Growth Lending’s mission.
Find out more about our culture here.
The story of Growth Lending
Back in 2011, we recognised that there was a missing link in the funding lifecycle for growing businesses…
In the aftermath of the financial crisis, traditional banks had withdrawn from the SME lending market, leaving many of the UK’s 5.6 million small and medium-sized businesses in a predicament.
Many were growing quickly, with innovative business models that incorporated cutting-edge technologies and sought-after digital services, but lacked the historical performance records that were often required to raise funds from traditional lenders.
Without further capital to invest in the continued development of disruptive propositions and technologies, these businesses were likely to grow fast and then fail.
Launch
We bridged the gap between traditional lenders and equity providers – offering a realistic funding solution to innovative, fast-growth firms that were too early for the banks, but did not wish to dilute their equity.
Starting with a small but expert team in London, our lending roster quickly grew, as we attracted some of the best and brightest talent from major financial institutions across the UK. Like us, these individuals were seeking innovation and inspiration, leaving the traditional lenders behind to join us in supporting fast growth SMEs.
We also ventured to Cape Town, recognising the wealth of knowledge and expertise in the region, which would enable us to build an exceptional portfolio team to support our UK operations.
Between 2011 and 2018, we focused on supporting the growth of Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) firms, investing in almost 40 businesses.
A need for local lenders
As we met more and more ambitious, growing businesses, it became apparent that the lending gap was a problem for growing firms across the UK – and for those outside London, lending options were even more scarce.
So in October 2018 Growth Lending ventured north to open its first regional office, with Ryan Sorby at the helm. A Bristol office followed just months later and a Cambridge office not long after that.
Diverse funding solutions for a diverse SME community
Fast forward to January 2020 and even more growth was afoot; we acquired GapCap and KX Media Capital Ltd, uniting these brands under the Growth Lending banner and launching our first working capital facilities.
GapCap had been operating since 2014 as a disruptive fintech that provided innovative growth finance to SMEs. KX Media Capital Ltd represented the UK arm of Fastpay, a digital lending platform for fast-growth adtech and marketing businesses. Both brought an exciting new edge to the Growth Lending portfolio.
The onset of the pandemic presented further opportunity to diversify too, as Growth Lending became an accredited provider of the government’s Covid-19 business recovery schemes.
Growth Lending could now offer funding that ranged from £10k to £10m, supporting multiple stages of our clients’ business life cycles.
The growth journey continues…
Since then, Birmingham and Leeds have joined cities across the UK in becoming permanent locations for Growth Lending offices, as we continue to respond to the need for local funding support for SMEs across the country.
We have also expanded our overseas presence, capitalising on the high quality IT talent in the Philippines and responding to market demand for our products in the USA, opening an office in Atlanta, Georgia.
Then, at the beginning of 2023, we united Growth Lending with its sister brand BOOST&Co, so that both firms would operate under the Growth Lending brand banner, simplifying the experience for our clients and professional network.
To date, Growth Lending has lent more than £650m, supporting the growth journey of more than 130 companies. Could your business be next?
Meet our team
Get to know some of the people that make Growth Lending such an interesting place to work.
