ANNA and YouLend launch embedded SME revenue finance in UK app

UK business-account provider ANNA has embedded YouLend financing directly into its app, allowing eligible small businesses and sole traders to access funding equivalent to as much as two months of projected revenue.

ANNA said eligible customers can receive funding in as little as 24 hours. Rather than relying solely on assets or conventional credit history, the amount available is calculated using trading history and revenue already being generated through sources including marketplace sales, payment-provider flows and invoice payments.

Repayment is linked to future trading. A share of incoming revenue is used to settle the advance, meaning the amount collected can adjust with the business’s sales performance rather than following the fixed repayment profile of a conventional term loan.

The partnership follows significant existing use of YouLend by ANNA customers. Before the product was formally embedded, 1,531 ANNA customers had independently accessed a combined £44.8m through YouLend, equivalent to an average of around £29,300 per business. That £44.8m figure predates the new embedded integration and should not be interpreted as funding generated by the partnership since launch.

YouLend provides the funding, while ANNA acts as the distribution environment through which eligible customers are pre-qualified and taken through the application process. YouLend says 80 per cent of pre-qualified customers go on to be approved, subject to its eligibility criteria.

The structure addresses a common working-capital mismatch for smaller businesses: revenue may already have been earned or be visible in trading data while cash has yet to reach the company’s bank account. Bringing the finance into the business-account interface is intended to shorten the route from identifying that liquidity gap to obtaining funding.

The launch gives YouLend another embedded distribution channel in the UK SME market while allowing ANNA to add financing alongside its existing business-account, invoicing, tax and accounting services.