Equipal, a UK-based fintech lender focused on business equipment finance, has secured £16.25million from Altum Capital Management in a deal that combines a £1.25million equity injection with a £15million forward-flow facility. The transaction, which closed in June 2026, is intended to fund growth in the UK asset finance market and expand the company’s headcount from its current size to around 12 staff over the next year.
The forward-flow facility is structured in two parts: an initial full lease funding component and a contingent junior tranche. Altum Capital provides both the equity and the funding capacity, which Eamonn McMahon, founder and managing director of equipal, said was a deliberate structural choice. “The structure of this deal allows for additional scale with senior funding in the years ahead and critically, provides us with operating flexibility,” he said.
The deal structure
The combined equity-and-forward-flow arrangement from a single institutional counterparty is relatively uncommon in the current private credit environment. Many small lending platforms have struggled to secure funding as institutional investors retrenched following rate volatility and a period of elevated scrutiny over platform credit quality. Altum Capital, an FCA– and SEC-regulated credit fund founded in 2009, took a conservative approach to the transaction, incorporating credit enhancement provisions and legal protections before committing.
Equipal operates a proprietary platform embedded at the point-of-sale with more than 75 equipment vendors across the UK, enabling fast digital asset finance for purchases of up to £250,000. The company targets hard assets in manufacturing, transport and agriculture, covering everything from CNC machines to combine harvesters, with financing terms of up to five years. McMahon founded equipal in 2021 with a background in investment banking, and the firm’s credit track record is notable: a reported default rate of 1.26% and zero credit losses to date, with 69% of customers returning for further financing through the platform.
Market context
The UK asset finance market has historically been dominated by traditional lenders and high-street bank subsidiaries, with origination processes characterised by manual underwriting, email chains and lengthy turnaround times. Several fintech challengers have moved into the space over the past five years, applying digital origination and embedded distribution models to what has remained a structurally fragmented and paper-heavy segment. The value proposition for equipment vendors is speed and conversion: an embedded finance tool at the point-of-sale reduces friction at the moment a buyer is most committed to a purchase.
The embedded-finance angle is also relevant from a regulatory standpoint. Under FCA consumer credit and business lending frameworks, the distinction between regulated and unregulated lending carries significant compliance implications, particularly as the FCA has signalled closer scrutiny of credit broking arrangements embedded within commercial vendor relationships. Equipal’s focus on business-to-business equipment finance, rather than consumer lending, keeps it outside the most stringent consumer protections, but the regulatory landscape for platform lenders continues to evolve.
Altum Capital’s willingness to back equipal against that backdrop reflects a calculated credit bet. The fund has structured the deal to protect downside exposure, but the forward-flow commitment also signals confidence in the origination pipeline that equipal has built through its vendor network. The next milestones to watch will be the pace of vendor network expansion, the deployment rate against the £15million facility, and whether senior funding partners follow at the scale McMahon has flagged.
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