British Business Bank invests $20m in fintech company 9fin
Press release
British Business Bank will invest $20m in 9fin, a London-based fintech company, as part of $170 million Series C funding round. This investment has been made in partnership with European VC Redalpine. The investment sees 9fin reach unicorn status, adding another unicorn to the Bank’s equity portfolio.
This round was led by HarbourVest, with participation from Canada Pension Plan Investments (CPP) and previous investors Redalpine, Highland Europe, Spark Capital and Seedcamp.
Founded in 2016, 9fin is an AI‑native intelligence platform built for credit and debt‑market professionals, offering real‑time data, analytics, news and document‑extraction tools to help banks, investors and advisors analyse leveraged finance, private credit and distressed debt.
Debt capital markets are the largest asset class in the world, yet information remains trapped in data rooms, emails, and PDFs. 9fin centralises this information and enables credit professionals to identify, analyse, and act on opportunities within a single platform.
9fin has delivered multiple consecutive years of 100% ARR growth and has now raised over $250 million to-date. Its platform is used by more than 300 leading banks, asset managers, law firms and advisory firms globally.
This investment will fuel the development of its AI capabilities, help expand its proprietary dataset and support its continued growth in the US market.
The funding round sees 9fin reach unicorn status. As at January 2026, the British Business Bank’s equity programmes had supported 27 UK unicorns, representing 64% of all current UK unicorns.
Leandros Kalisperas, Chief Investment Officer at British Business Bank said:
We are stepping up our support for the UK’s scale ups. Investments like this provide vital growth funding for fast-growing companies and are complementary to our indirect support through venture capital funds. By increasing the availability of later-stage capital, we are helping the UK’s most innovative businesses to realise their commercial potential while maintaining a strong UK presence.
George Mills, Investment Director at British Business Bank, said:
We’re proud to be backing yet another UK unicorn. 9fin is a great example of the strength of UK fintech, applying AI to transform one of the world’s largest and most complex financial markets. This investment will help 9fin to accelerate its global expansion and continue to drive productivity in debt markets.
Steven Hunter, CEO & Co-founder, 9fin said:
AI will redefine the credit markets, but only if it’s powered by proprietary data and embedded into how professionals actually work. That’s exactly what we’ve built at 9fin. We've scaled our product rapidly across geographies and asset classes to provide clients with unmatched breadth and depth of data in an AI-native platform. Our ultimate goal is to be the only platform credit professionals ever need. This capital gets us there even faster.
Further Information
If you are a journalist and have a media enquiry, please contact [email protected].
Notes to editors
About the British Business Bank
The British Business Bank is the UK government’s economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to drive sustainable growth and prosperity across the UK and to enable the transition to a net zero economy, by improving access to finance for smaller businesses. Its remit is to design, deliver and efficiently manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government. The British Business Bank’s core programmes support £23bnRead footnote text 1 of finance to almost 64,000Read footnote text 2 smaller businesses.
British Business Bank plc is a public limited company registered in England and Wales, registration number 08616013, registered office at Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 2GQ. It is a development bank wholly owned by HM Government. British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. With the exception of BBB Investment Services Limited they are not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority or the Financial Conduct Authority. BBB Investment Services Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. A complete legal structure chart for the group can be found at British Business Bank.
The transaction described above does not constitute or imply any endorsement, warranty or recommendation by the UK government, the British Business Bank plc, its subsidiaries or any other party in respect of 9fin or its products or services.
About 9fin
9fin is the AI-native platform for global debt markets. Founded by former J.P. Morgan banker Steven Hunter and Deutsche Bank engineer Hussam EL-Sheikh, the company combines data, analytics, and AI-powered workflows in a single platform, helping clients work smarter and faster to outperform their peers. The company is headquartered in London, with offices in New York, Hong Kong, and Belfast and teams across Latin America and Asia. For more information, visit 9fin.com.
-
Return to footnote location
1
Figures as at end March 2025
-
Return to footnote location
2
Figures as at end March 2025, does not include Start Up Loans
Quick links
Latest news
-
Read more about British Business Bank commits £100m to Oxford Quantum Circuits Press release
03 June 2026 -
Read more about The British Business Bank’s Growth Guarantee Scheme unlocks £200m for smaller businesses across Scotland, revealing the nation’s regions, cities and sectors investing most in their own growth Press release
02 June 2026 -
Read more about British Business Bank invests £5m in IMU Biosciences Press release
02 June 2026