Business
ThinCats announces new support for UK SMEs with £300 million funding agreement
Published by Gbaf News
Posted on September 18, 2018
6 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Gbaf News
Posted on September 18, 2018
6 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
ThinCats a leading fintech lender to SMEs has today announced a new programme for up to £300 million with global asset manager Insight Investment to fund UK SMEs with commercial loans.
On top of £300m from existing investors, ThinCats now has a potential £600 million to fund UK SMEs across the full risk spectrum in all regions and sectors from £100,000 to £10 million.
ThinCats’ lending focus remains on meeting borrowers’ ambitions through funding of up to five years to companies with asset backing or reliable cashflows for working capital, acquisition, refinance or growth.
Commenting on the news, Damon Walford, Chief Development Officer, ThinCats: “We have responded to a market need to provide lending at a cost of capital that reflects the lower risk associated with established strong businesses and thereby offer a real alternative to bank funding. By combining big data and technology, with dynamic credit and client servicing skills, we are simplifying traditional lending models. ThinCats enables SMEs to scale-up fast and achieve their growth ambitions with strong institutional funding support.
“With our interest rates now starting at 5 per cent, this new programme puts us right in the mix with traditional lenders.”
Shaheer Guirguis, Head of Secured Finance at Insight Investment: ‘Our secured finance strategy continues to seek compelling assets that provide our clients with complexity premium above comparably-rated corporate credit securities. Our partnership with ThinCats represents our commitment to source the most compelling investment opportunities in specialist lending markets such as SME loans.
“We have worked closely with the ThinCats investment team and been impressed by their focus and clear commitment to developing a resilient long-term lending platform for SMEs. In an era in which banks are retrenching from certain lending markets due to regulatory considerations this is a concrete example of how institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies can step in to support SMEs and UK economic activity across the country”.
Ravi Anand, Managing Director, ThinCats: “Our continued engagement across the institutional lender market has provided us with up to £600 million of capital to support the ambitions of UK SMEs. For our lenders, we are able to generate strong and sustainable yields that are a compelling alternative to traditional fixed income investments across the risk spectrum. For our borrowers we fill the significant funding gap left by conventional lenders which ultimately empowers UK economic growth.”
”We are really pleased to have worked with a large and credible institutional investor such as Insight Investment with its commercial, credit focussed approach. We really appreciated the investment team’s understanding of the specialist lending market which will allow us to continue to support the growing UK SME market with the highest credit and security metrics as determined by ThinCats’ proprietary and market leading SME risk model.”
Insight Investment is a leading global asset manager with more than £600 billion of assets under management 1 and is a part of BNY Mellon’s multi-boutique structure.
ThinCats is the trading name of a group of companies owned by ESF Capital Limited.
ThinCats a leading fintech lender to SMEs has today announced a new programme for up to £300 million with global asset manager Insight Investment to fund UK SMEs with commercial loans.
On top of £300m from existing investors, ThinCats now has a potential £600 million to fund UK SMEs across the full risk spectrum in all regions and sectors from £100,000 to £10 million.
ThinCats’ lending focus remains on meeting borrowers’ ambitions through funding of up to five years to companies with asset backing or reliable cashflows for working capital, acquisition, refinance or growth.
Commenting on the news, Damon Walford, Chief Development Officer, ThinCats: “We have responded to a market need to provide lending at a cost of capital that reflects the lower risk associated with established strong businesses and thereby offer a real alternative to bank funding. By combining big data and technology, with dynamic credit and client servicing skills, we are simplifying traditional lending models. ThinCats enables SMEs to scale-up fast and achieve their growth ambitions with strong institutional funding support.
“With our interest rates now starting at 5 per cent, this new programme puts us right in the mix with traditional lenders.”
Shaheer Guirguis, Head of Secured Finance at Insight Investment: ‘Our secured finance strategy continues to seek compelling assets that provide our clients with complexity premium above comparably-rated corporate credit securities. Our partnership with ThinCats represents our commitment to source the most compelling investment opportunities in specialist lending markets such as SME loans.
“We have worked closely with the ThinCats investment team and been impressed by their focus and clear commitment to developing a resilient long-term lending platform for SMEs. In an era in which banks are retrenching from certain lending markets due to regulatory considerations this is a concrete example of how institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies can step in to support SMEs and UK economic activity across the country”.
Ravi Anand, Managing Director, ThinCats: “Our continued engagement across the institutional lender market has provided us with up to £600 million of capital to support the ambitions of UK SMEs. For our lenders, we are able to generate strong and sustainable yields that are a compelling alternative to traditional fixed income investments across the risk spectrum. For our borrowers we fill the significant funding gap left by conventional lenders which ultimately empowers UK economic growth.”
”We are really pleased to have worked with a large and credible institutional investor such as Insight Investment with its commercial, credit focussed approach. We really appreciated the investment team’s understanding of the specialist lending market which will allow us to continue to support the growing UK SME market with the highest credit and security metrics as determined by ThinCats’ proprietary and market leading SME risk model.”
Insight Investment is a leading global asset manager with more than £600 billion of assets under management 1 and is a part of BNY Mellon’s multi-boutique structure.
ThinCats is the trading name of a group of companies owned by ESF Capital Limited.
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