OakNorth secures £154m funding from three major businesses

OakNorth has secured a £154m investment from The Clermont Group, Toscafund and Coltrane, allowing to continue supporting UK businesses and enabling lenders to access SME lending space through ACORN machine.

ACORN is central to what has enabled OakNorth to grow successfully in the UK and will now be available to lenders across the world. OakNorth is looking to also lend a further £1.5bn to UK businesses throughout 2018.

Launched in September 2015, OakNorth provides flexible debt finance from £500k to £20m for all UK businesses, and has helped to create new jobs and homes.

Rishi Khosla, CEO and co-founder of OakNorth, commented: “It has been an incredible and humbling two years for OakNorth – we’ve had the chance to work with some of the UK’s most inspiring and ambitious entrepreneurs, and have helped over 150 businesses achieve their growth ambitions.

“While we have reached an £800m loan book in two years, we know that this represents just a fraction of the businesses that need financing support. This funding will enable us to boost our lending by an additional £1.5bn and add thousands more jobs and homes in the UK.”

This funding will enable OakNorth to boost its contribution to the UK economy, and launch ACORN to lenders around the world. The three investors – The Clermont Group, Toscafund and Coltrane – have purchased a c.16 percent stake.

ACORN enables lenders to originate, underwrite, monitor, and book transactions faster, more efficiently.

Its cloud-based technology sources millions of data items on SMEs across various parameters, sectors, and markets, and then uses machine learning algorithms to pull out the pieces of data that lenders need to make more informed credit decisions.

Khosla continued: “Rather than building a technology platform and then going to market trying to sell it, we wanted to build the platform and prove the concept in a highly regulated and highly competitive market – the UK – via OakNorth.

“Through ACORN we will be able to help lenders around the world unlock the underserved and underestimated market for bespoke loans to SMEs.”