Firenze, a Lombard lending fintech startup, has raised £6 million in funding led by AlbionVC, with participation from Outward VC and Form Ventures. It provides an embedded finance platform that allows wealth managers to offer lending secured against investments without requiring clients to sell or transfer assets.
The platform enables fast access to liquidity for borrowers, often within 24 hours, while allowing wealth managers and investment platforms to offer cost-efficient lending solutions. Over the past 12 months, Firenze has introduced Lombard lending to independent financial advisers, wealth management firms and investment platforms across the United Kingdom, becoming a partner to firms representing almost £200 billion in assets under management, including Brooks Macdonald, Canaccord Wealth, Artorius, Lincoln, Cerno, Parmenion, P1 and Soderberg.
Demand for flexible liquidity is increasing, with total volume of drawn facilities tripling during the first quarter of the year. Borrowers use Lombard lending for purposes including alternatives to property bridging loans, supporting family financial needs such as education and home purchases, and enabling tax planning and inter-generational wealth transfer without disrupting investment portfolios. Firenze’s platform is also attracting interest from private banks seeking to improve efficiency, manage risk and expand lending against assets they do not custody.
The funding will support growth plans including expanding partnerships, developing additional product capabilities, enhancing its SaaS offering for banks with the rollout of an agentic credit structurer, and entering new jurisdictions. Firenze also plans to more than double its team to meet increasing borrower demand and support a growing number of wealth managers adopting Lombard lending.
Founded in Manchester in 2024, the business is led by CEO David Newman. Paul Pester serves as chairman, bringing experience from roles including CEO of TSB Bank and Virgin Money.
The market demand for Firenze’s solution has exceeded our expectations and as a result our vision has got more and more ambitious. We, therefore, felt now was the right time to take on further capital to accelerate our plans. When seeking a partner to work with for this next phase of growth Jay and Albion stood out. I ultimately believe passion and trust are the two most important attributes when choosing a VC to work with and Jay & Albion have demonstrated that time and time again through the process of getting to know one another. We also feel honoured by the continued support of our existing investors who have shown ever growing enthusiasm for the momentum behind Firenze.
Firenze has built the foundational infrastructure layer to power the next generation of collateralized credit products - starting with Lombard Lending. We're proud to support the team as they scale. Lombard lending has been one of private banking's most powerful tools, yet the vast majority of investors have had no access to it. Firenze is democratising this access, bringing Lombard lending to the mass affluent segment. David and the team have executed exceptionally, signing partners covering over £200bn in assets and delivering a platform that solves the custody, capital, and compliance challenges simultaneously. That combination of market timing and product depth gave us the conviction to lead this round.
When we led Firenze's seed round, we backed David's vision to bring Lombard lending beyond the walls of large private banks. Twelve months on, the progress has exceeded our expectations – including a five-fold increase in its partner network, a rapidly growing loan book, and a SaaS proposition that's attracting leading banks and financial institutions – as has the vision for its future. Firenze is now proving that the credit infrastructure it has built can reshape how the entire wealth industry thinks about liquidity. We're proud to continue our support as the company enters this exciting next phase of growth.
