TRIVER raises further £20m to provide instant capital to UK SMEs

By Gloria Methri

SME working capital provider TRIVER has raised a further £20 million to transform the way small businesses access finance. The deal – a £20 million debt facility from Luxembourg-based Avellinia Capital – will enable TRIVER to offer over £200 million of funding annually to help small businesses in the UK and further its product development.

Leveraging Open Banking data and AI, TRIVER funds small businesses’ short-term working capital needs, underwriting the risk of small business borrowing instantly and automatically. Faster and more easily than high street banks, it can provide advances on a business’s client invoices 24/7.

The £20 million raise follows £7 million equity funding announced in April 2023 involving Andreessen Horowitz, Stride VC, Axeleo Capital, Motive Partners, and Sequoia Capital. TRIVER subsequently launched its first prototype in May and a commercial proposition with paying customers in August. It has already advanced invoices with a combined value of more than £1 million. The average invoice size is £12,000 and the average duration of funding is 30 days.

Jerome Le Luel, Founder & CEO, said, “The vast majority of SMEs we interact with are willing to grant us access to their bank data via Open Banking. They are familiar with this tool because it is commonly used with their accounting software. They see the benefit of a simpler process than manually providing bank statements and other data. Nor do they have to make personal guarantees when applying to us.”

With TRIVER, small businesses are granted a new facility within 3 hours of starting their application, and invoices typically take 2.5 minutes to fund. In the coming months, TRIVER plans to reduce this to sub-10 minutes to open a new facility, and less than 1 minute to advance an invoice. In comparison, banks typically take up to 4 weeks to open a facility and 24 hours to advance an invoice because of their manual processes.

TRIVER is designed to be embedded within digital service providers already serving SMEs. These providers benefit from easy-to-integrate; automated processes that make it simpler to provide a short-term working capital solution to support their customers. They can also receive a value-share back when their customers use TRIVER’s service.

The company has already signed 11 distribution partners since launching, spanning commercial brokers and lending platforms. These include Funding Options by Tide, Newable, Swoop, Clear Business Finance, and Capitalise.