Tide secures £100m debt facility from Fasanara Capital

By Gloria Methri

Tide, a UK-based financial platform for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has obtained a £100 million securitisation debt facility from Fasanara Capital, an alternative asset manager headquartered in London. The funding is expected to support Tide’s efforts to expand its short-term cash flow solutions for SMEs across the United Kingdom.

Founded in 2015, Tide launched its first product in 2017, aiming to simplify business banking and financial management for small businesses. Since then, the company has developed a comprehensive suite of services, including business current accounts, expense management tools, invoicing, payments, and credit services tailored to the needs of SMEs. This diversified approach has helped Tide grow its UK member base to around 650,000 businesses, representing over 10% of the domestic SME market.

The newly secured facility will be used to scale Tide’s working capital offering, enabling the company to extend more than £300 million in short-term loans to SMEs. These funds are designed to help businesses manage their daily cash flow challenges, a persistent issue for many small firms, particularly during uncertain economic conditions.

Oliver Prill, Tide CEO, said, “As one of the UK’s leading SME lending intermediaries, we work with more than 120 lenders to enable strategic funding solutions. Additionally, we provide a mechanism (“Tide Credit Flex”) that seeks to make it easier for small businesses to spread the cost of bank transfers into smaller monthly payments, thereby avoiding a balance dip. We know flexible, short-term working capital is critical to the success of small businesses where managing cash flow is a constant challenge. With the new Fasanara facility, we are able to extend the Credit Flex mechanism in a way that we believe will benefit more of our members, improving the efficiency and responsiveness of our service provision.”

Francesco Filia, Founder and CEO of Fasanara, added, “Fasanara is focused on the next generation of SME lending solutions. Our partnership with Tide represents a perfect alignment of vision, leveraging FinTech innovation to provide efficient, tailored credit solutions at scale. We are proud that Fasanara, a global leader in FinTech private credit, is partnering with Tide, a market leader in SME financial services, to enable hundreds of thousands of UK SMEs to gain access to the working capital they need to continue to grow and thrive.”

Fasanara Capital manages over $4.5 billion in assets (as of December 2024) and has financed over $85 billion to FinTech lenders across more than 60 countries over the past 14 years. Known for its focus on alternative credit, the investment firm has played a significant role in global FinTech debt financing. With this latest funding round, Tide aims to enhance its position within the UK FinTech ecosystem, focusing on accessible and flexible finance for SMEs—a sector that continues to face limited access to traditional credit channels.