Firenze secures £6M to democratise Lombard lending

Lombard lending fintech, Firenze, has secured an oversubscribed £6 million funding round, led by AlbionVC, with follow-on participation from all major existing investors. This funding round comes just 12 months after the startup’s £2.5 million Seed round.

Lombard lending allows a borrower to use liquid assets, such as stocks, bonds, or investment funds, as collateral against a loan. Often used by high net worth individuals, borrowers can use their investment portfolios to unlock liquidity without having to sell their holdings, allowing them access to cash while remaining invested in the markets. The demand for flexible liquidity is accelerating, with the total volume of drawn facilities tripling during Q1 alone.

Focused on democratising access to lending secured against investments, Firenze has rapidly become a leading lending solution for the wealth management and investment platform market, and has experienced rapid institutional adoption. Its proprietary embedded finance platform empowers wealth managers to offer cost-efficient lending solutions without clients needing to move or sell assets, meaning fast access to liquidity for borrowers – often in as little as 24 hours.

While private banks have offered access to Lombard facilities for years, Firenze’s technology and monitoring is now attracting interest from those very same providers. These institutions recognise Firenze’s ability to help them streamline, de-risk, and optimise the capital on their own Lombard lending activities, as well as safely expand their proposition to lend against assets they don’t custody.

In the last year, Firenze has introduced Lombard lending into the toolkit of IFAs, wealth management firms, and investment platforms across the UK, and is a trusted partner of UK firms representing almost £200 billion in Assets under Management (AuM).

David Newman, Founder and CEO, Firenze, commented: “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.”

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This funding round will support Firenze in its ambitious growth plans, helping the company accelerate the roll-out of its capabilities to more partners across a wider range of products, further enhance its SaaS offering for banks, including the roll out of an agentic credit structurer, and launch into new jurisdictions. Firenze also plans to more than double the size of its team to support increasing borrower requests and the growing population of wealth managers taking Lombard lending to their clients.

Jay Wilson, Partner, Albion VC, the leading investor in the funding round, commented: “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 £200 billion 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.”