Equipal secures £16.25m funding for business equipment

Eamonn McMahon, founder of equipal financing

Equipal, a fintech funder specialising in business equipment, has secured £16.25 million in combined equity investment and forward flow funding from Altum Capital Management to support its expansion in the UK asset finance market.

The deal comprises a £1.25 million equity investment alongside a headline £15 million forward flow facility, structured with initial full lease funding and contingent junior funding. Altum Capital is providing both the equity backing and the funding capacity.

The business operates a proprietary platform embedded at the point of sale with more than 75 equipment vendors across the UK, enabling vendors and their customers to arrange fast, automated asset finance for equipment purchases of up to £250,000.

Serving sectors including manufacturing and transport, equipal finances a range of hard assets, from CNC machines to coaches, over terms of up to five years with flexible structures. Its platform is designed to replace what has traditionally been a slow, email-heavy process by streamlining and automating transactions.

Positioning itself against traditional asset finance providers, equipal offers a fully digital platform aimed at making funding quicker and more accessible for both vendors and end users.
The company reports a default rate of 1.26% to date with zero credit losses, while 69% of customers who have used the platform have returned for additional finance.

The funding comes at a challenging time for platform lending and the wider private credit market, where many smaller platforms have faced constraints as investors retrench. Altum Capital said it has structured the transaction conservatively, incorporating strong credit enhancement alongside legal and corporate protections.

The new funding will support equipal’s continued growth plans, including recruitment across business development, marketing, operations, credit and data functions, with the team expected to expand to 12 over the next year.

Eamonn McMahon, founder of equipal, said: “I’m thrilled to get this deal over the line. While the market environment has been challenging, our operating resilience and discipline on credit, while keeping the customer front and centre, has helped us get here. The structure of this deal allows for additional scale with senior funding in the years ahead and critically, provides us with operating flexibility. We look forward to scaling up, in partnership with our new shareholders and funders, Altum Capital.”

The partnership also reflects a longstanding link between the leadership teams. When Mr McMahon began his career at Bear Stearns in London, Altum Capital founder Marjorie Hogan was leading proprietary trading globally for the firm from New York.