Click here to get this post in PDF
- New specialist lender to offer loans of between £1m and £25m to proven UK businesses to power their momentum
- Founded by Ravi Anand, former Managing Director of ThinCats, which lent more than £2.5 billion to UK businesses
London, 20 October 2026 – Ignite Funding Partners (Ignite) today enters the UK lending market to fund proven UK businesses, offering tailored lending facilities of between £1 million and £25 million to support organic growth, acquisition, ownership transition and refinancing strategies. To support this, £500 million of lending capital is being lined up from leading institutional investors.
Ignite focuses on the larger end of the SME market: proven businesses with strong management teams which are building momentum and scaling. These firms make a disproportionately large contribution to the UK’s private sector. As per the ONS’s ‘Business population estimates for the UK and regions 2025: statistical release’, the 260,000 businesses in this SME category[1] make up only 4.5% of the UK private sector; however, they account for 28.7% of UK private sector employment and 31.2% of private sector turnover, so supporting their growth is of paramount importance. Ignite’s own research shows mid-sized SMEs which borrow capital to invest in their growth are three times more likely to grow their revenue at inflation +50% than those that do not borrow at all[2].
Mid-sized SMEs are often too large for non-bank SME-focused solutions, while mainstream lenders have lost the skills to effectively serve their needs. Ignite’s purpose is to champion these businesses in every region of the UK, helping them contribute more to local and national growth. The potential of these businesses is great, with Ignite’s proprietary analysis estimating a total addressable market of c.£12 billion a year.
Ravi Anand is the former ThinCats Managing Director and has recruited a number of senior ThinCats colleagues, who together provided more than £2.5 billion of funding to UK businesses over the last 10 years. By deal volume, ThinCats was ranked in the top two lenders in 2023, 2024 and 2025 (Experian). The team brings vast experience across commercial and investment banking, asset management and private credit and works closely with the regional corporate finance community and private equity investors to provide tailored funding solutions to companies.
Ignite’s ambition is to be the funding partner of choice for proven UK businesses, their investors and advisers. Its lending approach is relationship-led: providing a consistent appetite, flexibility of funding structures and open communication at every stage. This is empowered through data and purpose-built AI agents that swiftly analyse company information, allowing human judgement to focus on what matters.
Ravi Anand, founder of Ignite Funding Partners, said: “Strong and growing businesses are vital to the UK economy, and they deserve a lender that understands them and backs them to enable their growth. Our job is simple: to provide the capital needed to power the momentum they have created. As entrepreneurs ourselves, we know how business founders think and operate and the challenges they face, so we have created a funding platform which helps them by being relationship-focused, flexible and transparent. Backing ambition is the most exciting part of what we do. Ignite combines a highly experienced team with AI tools which together ensure we can provide the right funding to scale businesses. We will be a genuine, long-term partner to businesses, their advisers and investors, in every region of the UK.”
About Ignite Funding Partners
Ignite Funding Partners is a new specialist UK lender, founded and led by Ravi Anand, who, alongside Ignite’s initial team, scaled ThinCats into a leading UK lender. It provides funding of between £1 million and £25 million to proven, growth-focused UK businesses, and is being funded by a range of institutional investors. Ignite aims to be the funding partner of choice for proven UK businesses, their advisers and investors, by combining efficient data- and AI-enabled analysis with human judgement, while placing partnership at the heart of its lending business.
About Ravi Anand
Ravi Anand is a highly experienced business leader with more than 35 years of experience across private credit, investment banking and asset management. Until 2025, he was Managing Director of ThinCats, one of the UK’s leading lenders, where he led the firm’s growth strategy and lending operations and was instrumental in the business originating £2.5 billion of lending. Previously, he held senior roles at Dexion Capital, New Star Asset Management and HSBC Investment Bank. Ravi qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG. He is also a non-executive director of Capital Gearing Trust PLC.
[1] Businesses with 10-249 employees
[2] Ignite Funding Partners, based on analysis of the incidence of growth amongst 750,000 mid-sized firms 2007 to 2025
Also read:
Image source: Ravi Anand
