Assetz Capital reveals itself as twelfth fintech looking for a slice of the £100m Pool E BCR fund

The alternative lender has applied for a £10m BCR grant.

Peer-to-peer lender Assetz Capital has today revealed that it is the latest fintech to put in a bid for a slice of the £100m Pool E British Competitions Remedies (BCR) grant. 

Assetz Capital is looking to receive the £10m grant, which it says will be used to continue scaling its SME lending. 

The £100m was given back to the BCR by Metro Bank and Nationwide, both of which gave back £50m each, after failing to reach their growth targets for SME lending. 

Stuart Law, CEO of Assetz Capital, said: “By December 2022 we’re aiming to have lent a further £1 billion to SMEs, supporting around another 25,000 jobs and funding the development of at least 3,500 further new homes.” 

"This BCR grant, combined with a further £10m matched contribution from ourselves, would enable us to build on these strong foundations and grow even faster, allowing us to provide even greater support for underserved UK SMEs.” 

The fintech is the second largest peer-to-peer lender in Europe and has lent over £1bn to SMEs in the UK, having supported more than 1,200 businesses and roughly 100,000 jobs along the way. 

Assetz Capital’s bid comes after the lending platform secured a £15m investment from British Business Investments, the investment arm of the British Business Bank, back in early March. 

The peer-to-peer lender also recently closed a crowdfunding campaign that it opened in the hopes of securing government-backed Future Fund convertible loan. 

At the time, Law told AltFi that he had hoped to attract a minimum of £500,000, with a target of £1m. The oversubscribed crowdfunding campaign closed after raising over £760,000. 

Here are the 12 current public applications as they stand:  

Bidding for larger grants (£10-35m)

• Starling Bank looking to raise up to £35m with two new BCR grants
• Tide and ClearBank join the race for £25-£35m slice of Pool E
• Cashplus enters the running with £35m BCR bid to rival Tide and Starling Bank
• Payments provider Contis enters the running with dual £10m and £25m BCR bids
• Assetz Capital

Bidding for smaller grants (£2.5-5m)

• Fractal partners with Untied tax app for £5m BCR bid  
• Coconut files £5m BCR Pool E bid  
• Sonovate launches £5m Pool E proposal

Bidding, but unclear for which grant size

• Funding Xchange outs itself as first BCR Pool E applicant  
• Ezbob  
• Trade Ledger and Equifax  
• Trade Finance Global aims to enhance its tech with BCR bid

Know of any other BCR Pool E bids? Let us know.