Curve puts itself in the running for slice of £100m Pool E BCR fund

Curve is the thirteenth fintech to put in a bid for a Pool E BCR grant.

Curve, the all-your-cards-in-one fintech, has today revealed that it has put in a bid for a £10m grant from the £100m Pool E British Competitions Remedies (BCR) fund. 

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. 

The fintech plans to use the cash to support the development of two new SME-focussed products, Curve Cast and Curve Credit-SME. 

Curve Cast will allow SMEs to share access to a company card, without having to share sensitive information, like the card number, and give them full control over spending limits and card activity. 

Curve Credit-SME will help SMEs retrospectively finance urgent spending through short-term loans instead of emergency credit, helping SMEs to better meet their short-term cash needs. 

Shachar Bialick, CEO of Curve, said: “Curve Cast and Curve Credit-SME take the best of Curve’s unique tools for managing money and apply them to the biggest challenges faced by British entrepreneurs.” 

If Curve’s application is successful, the fintech has pledged to match the £10m BCR grant with its own cash. 

Nathalie Oestmann, COO of Curve, added: “This BCR grant would mean 75 new full-time jobs, a quarter of which will be outside London, and more than 20 of which will be for people at the start of their careers.” 

“If we are successful in our application, we are determined to work closely with SMEs to maximise the opportunities and create customer-focused products that best serve the needs of businesses in these challenging times.” 

Curve is also reportedly on the hunt for a sizeable Series C funding round, although it's still unknown how much the fintech is planning on raising. 

Here are the 13 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 reveals itself as twelfth fintech looking for a slice of the £100m Pool E BCR fund 

• Curve 

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.