One area where AI’s impact hasn’t been discussed enough on these pages is how it will improve/speed up small business lending decisions. Giving small businesses easier/greater access to short-term capital is an ongoing gap.

SMBs often desperately need short-term funding to stock inventory, make payroll, or overcome other short-term obstacles to staying afloat. And late payments are a key reason SMBs often struggle to keep it together. 

A new UK company called Triver is trying to do just that by combining AI and open-banking data to conduct instant underwriting decisions on whether or not an SMB is worth the risk of extending a short-term loan. 

Specifically, Triver offers SMBs loans against invoices. It currently aims to reduce the speed of this process down to 10 minutes to open a new credit facility. And to just one minute to receive approval on an invoice advance. 

Investor Buy In

Investors seem to believe in the potential for using AI to speed up the process of approving loans (something fintech has been doing for a while) while improving the quality of these decisions. 

This week we learned that Triver, which had already secured an $8.7 million seed round, has secured a GBP 20 million (US$25 million) credit facility from Luxembourg-based asset base financing firm Avelina Capital. The facility reportedly puts Triver in a position to offer about GBP200 million in SMB loans annually. 

Triver was launched earlier this year by Jerome Le Luel. He is a French national with extensive banking experience in the US and the UK. Le Luel’s resume includes long stints at Capital One and Barclays Bank. He also honed his SMB fintech chops as Chief Risk Officer and Head of Lending Strategy at Funding Circle UK for nearly seven years. 

Here is what Le Luel said about the new funding. 

“The vast majority of SMEs we interact with are willing to grant us access to their bank data via open banking. They are familiar with this tool because it is commonly used with their accounting software,” he said. “They see the benefit of a simpler process than manually providing bank statements and other data. Nor do they have to make personal guarantees when applying to us.”