Sonovate becomes BCR’s 7th public bidder with £5m Pool E proposal

Invoice finance tech provider Sonovate this morning revealed it has filed a bid as part of the Banking Competition Remedies (CBR) £100m Pool E fund. 

“Winning this grant would enable us to deploy better funding solutions to tens of thousands more UK SMEs, providing them with much needed cashflow and the associated technology to drive growth, as well as helping them deal with funding challenges, late payments and lost business,” said Sonovate’s co-CEO Richard Prime.

Sonovate is bidding for one of the £2.5-5m grants up for grabs, joining the likes of Coconut, Fractal and Untied. 

Its bid comes after Sonovate was recently accredited by the British Business Bank as a Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) lender, and the startup says the grant funding would be used to build new technology and accelerate the growth of its partner network which enables third-parties to launch their own invoice financing services. 

The bid marks the 7th to be made publicly available alongside Funding Xchange and Enterprise Nation, Starling Bank,Ezbob,Equifax and Trade Ledger, Fractal and Untied, and Coconut, who have all revealed their bids in the last few weeks. 

Between now and the week of 17 August the BCR will decide on the winners of the first £20m of grants, and by the week of 21 September will decide on the remaining £80m. 

Here are the 7 current public applications as they stand: 

Bidding for larger grants (£10-35m) 

• Starling Bank looking to raise up to £35m with two new BCR grants

Bidding for smaller grants (£2.5-5m) 

• Fractal partners with Untied tax app for £5m BCR bid

• Coconut files £5m BCR Pool E bid

• Sonovate 

Bidding, but unclear for which grant size

• Funding Xchange outs itself as first BCR Pool E applicant

• Ezbob

• Trade Ledger and Equifax

Know of any other BCR Pool E bids? Let us know.