Allica Bank is launching a £100m funding round

Allica Bank has already closed a £26 million investment and now is launching a new £100 million funding round to meet the current high levels of demand for its services.

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The business bank received the full UK banking authorization in 2019 from Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA). The company claimed to have had over £1bn of enquiries from businesses in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The main focus of Allica Bank is on small and medium-sized enterprises also known as SMEs. CEO Richard Davies came to Allica from Revolut this July.

Davies has various experiences from banking and FinTech and in Revolut he led the challenger bank’s global banking proposition, including establishing new leadership teams and operations in Ireland, US, Australia, and Singapore; launching Revolut’s bank in Europe, and progressing Revolut’s plans in the UK.

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Davies says SMEs will be “vital to the recovery of the UK economy”. He adds that the supply of finance has been “badly damaged by COVID-19”.

“The time is now for Allica to scale up its operations to meet this business funding gap, bringing a blend of human relationships, deep lending expertise, and digital disruption.”

He adds: “Together with potential acquisition opportunities of non-bank lenders impacted by the pandemic, we intend to create the leading SME challenger bank for the decade ahead.”

The announcement came as Allica successfully completed a follow-on investment of £26m led by the existing majority shareholder, Warwick Capital Partners.