Updraft, a London-based startup promising to help users ditch their credit cards, has raised £16 million in equity and debt.
Quilam Capital led the round on the debt side, while the UK Government’s Future Fund participated via their convertible loan note alongside a group of high-net-worth investors.
Founded by former HSBC executive Aseem Munshi, Updraft has developed a part lending, part credit report, and part financial planning app.
The company says it wants to help customers get rid of spend-linked borrowings such as credit cards, overdrafts and increasingly, the buy now, pay later schemes often found on ecommerce sites.
Using open banking and credit report data, Updraft automatically builds a 360-degree picture of a user's spending and borrowing and provides a series of interventions designed to lift the consumer back into the black.
Where expensive borrowing is detected, users can get ‘Updraft Credit’ to pay off these high-interest-rate debts with a lower-cost loan.
After beta testing throughout the year and building up a 40,000-strong waitlist, the FCA-approved service hit the Apple App store last week. An Android version is in the pipeline.
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