Firenze raises £6m to build global credit infrastructure for wealth managers

Fintech

Posted
April 21 2026

The equity round led by AlbionVC, alongside existing investors Outward VC and Form Ventures, follows a period of hyper-growth

Firenze, the two-year-old Lombard lending fintech, has today announced an oversubscribed £6m funding round. The funding round was led by AlbionVC, with follow-on participation from all major existing investors, including Outward VC and Form Ventures.

The fresh funding comes just 12 months after the company’s £2.5m Seed round, reflecting the rapid institutional adoption of Firenze’s technology. Focused on democratising access to lending secured against investments, Firenze has rapidly become the default Lombard lending solution for the wealth management and investment platform market.

The firm’s 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.

In the last 12 months, Firenze has executed its vision of introducing Lombard lending into the toolkit of IFAs, wealth management firms and investment platforms across the UK. The company is now the trusted partner of UK firms representing almost £200bn in Assets under Management (AuM), including top 20 wealth managers Brooks Macdonald and Canaccord Wealth; independent private offices Artorius, Lincoln and Cerno; and investment platforms Parmenion, P1 and Soderberg.

The demand for flexible liquidity is accelerating; the total volume of drawn facilities tripled during Q1 alone. Lombard lending supports a variety of client needs, from offering an alternative to traditional property bridging loans to “reinventing the bank of mum and dad”, allowing parents to support their children with university tuition, fund their first step onto the property ladder or gift them a perfect wedding.

Borrowers are also increasingly leveraging these facilities to support tax planning and inter-generational wealth transfer strategies, accessing liquidity without disrupting carefully constructed portfolios, especially with global market conditions uncertain in the current geopolitical landscape.

While private banks have offered access to Lombard facilities for years, the sophistication of Firenze’s technology and monitoring is now attracting interest from those very same providers. These institutions recognise that to offer top-quality products, they need innovation and efficiency, and see 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.

This funding round will support Firenze in its ambitious growth plans, helping the company to 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 role out of an agentic credit structurer, and launch into new jurisdictions.

In support of this expansion, Firenze 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.

David Newman , CEO of 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. 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.”
Jay Wilson, Partner

Andi Kazeroonian, Principal, Outward VC commented:

“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.”