Allica Bank raises £100m in funding round

The round also has participation from existing investors Warwick Capital Partners and Atalaya Capital Management.

The company said the investment would allow Allica to “scale rapidly and accelerate its disruptive impact in the UK SME market”.

Allica Bank said it is the only “digitally-native challenger bank” that is “committed to providing a full-service banking relationship to established SMEs and entrepreneurs, offering them lending, savings and payments”.

The firm gained its banking licence around three years ago and has since delivered growth and a strong financial performance. In September, it revealed that it had reached profitability and had lent £1bn to SMEs so far.

Richard Davies, chief executive of Allica Bank and former executive at HSBC and Revolut, said: “From the moment we sat down with TCV it was clear we shared the same vision to transform SME banking in the UK, by taking on the mainstream ‘high street’ banking market.

“It’s a massive vote of confidence in the team we’ve built at Allica to attract backing from such a world-class technology investor under the toughest of market conditions, and this £100m funding round will enable us to support far more of Britain’s established and growth companies, who have been underserved for too long.”

Michael Kalfayan, partner at TCV, added: “Richard and team have built a truly impressive platform that is looking to solve a great need for UK established SMEs, a highly complex segment to serve.

“TCV is laser-focused on partnering with market-leading companies seeking to leverage technology to transform industries. Allica is a prime example of this and we’re incredibly excited to collaborate with this strong team as they work to be the country’s leading digitally-native SME bank.”

John Doran, general partner at TCV, said: “We worked closely with Richard during his time at Revolut and are delighted to partner with him again to support Allica on this journey.”