YouLend

Who are YouLend?

YouLend is an embedded finance provider that has provided 150,000 merchant cash advances to SMEs across the UK since starting in 2015. They have expanded across Europe and the US, offering revenue-based lending to a broad range of businesses via their embedded finance partnership model. 

They are now one of the leading merchant cash advance direct lenders due to partnerships with payment service providers, acquirers, ISOs, clouding accounting software providers, brokers, Saas providers, marketplaces, payment platforms and e-commerce platforms.

YouLend Key Facts

• By mid-2023, YouLend’s assets under management contributed £6.8 billion to the UK’s GDP
• 30% of SMEs obtaining finance through YouLend are led by women, which is 2.5x higher than the national average of 12%
• 75% of applicants don’t upload documents but use the Open Banking API to connect their business bank account to show evidence of their card sales (of these 90% are e-commerce applicants and 65% of brick-and-mortar store applicants).
• Applicants have access to financing that is 20% cheaper than market averages.
• YouLend has a 4.9 TrustPilot rating and 85% renewal rate.
• Customers of YouLend experience a 55% EBITDA growth rate compared to their counterparts

Which businesses qualify for YouLend cash advances?

YouLend’s merchant cash advances have two minimum requirements:

• A minimum of 3 months of trading
• £1,500 monthly card sales

While these requirements are reliable as a minimum criterion, each application remains subject to individual assessment.

What type of business finance does YouLend offer?

They offer financing from £3,000 up to £1,000,000 via 2 revenue-based financing products.  

Merchant Cash Advances

YouLend’s main offering is revenue-based financing which uses card sales as the basis of the financing agreement. Repayments will be tied to a percentage of daily revenue, meaning there’s less repayment anxiety during slow months. You can see more details about how merchant cash advances work here. 

Funding ranges up to £1 million and can often be approved in 24 hours and transferred in 48 hours. Most businesses will get more than one funding total offered from to them. 

Applicants who connect their business bank accounts using the Open Banking API will get approvals and funding faster. This process is used by 75% of applicants which means no statement uploads are required.

Instant Payouts

While revenue-based financing remains their flagship product (which they call Capital), YouLend offers an alternative product: Instant Payouts. This is a way to fund your account immediately after making a sale online or through a card terminal, rather than waiting for the transaction to settle.

Instant Payouts reduce the time between the sale and payout from days to minutes.

Key benefits of YouLend

Simple technology-led application process with no uploading of documents or conversations required.

YouLend integrates with over 11,000 other financial institutions. This simplifies the application process but also broadens the accessibility for applicants around the world.

Three-quarters of applicants apply without submitting any documents.

Quick approvals with a secure banking connection

YouLend’s embedded financing platform is at its best when connected to Plaid’s Open Banking network.

This secure open banking connection enables a 3x faster financing process and a 90% approval rate. Business applicants can select their financial institution from a long list of options and authenticate promptly using a biometric login.

Higher approval rates

YouLend’s approval rate for applications that use their automated open banking connection is 91% compared to 62% for traditional business loans.

Uploading documents within their online portal has an average approval rate of 84%. In either case, though, these are very high approval rates compared to most business financing products.

Rapid underwriting and funding

By using a digital funding workflow and Open Banking (which standardises data), a high degree of automation can be achieved thanks to API data exchange. This enables faster lending decisions based on a greater variety of inputs (as opposed to just a credit score), helping business owners source essential capital within hours rather than weeks.

Tailored funding based on actual business performance

Actual business performance is used to underwrite lending decisions which is one factor in why they have higher approval rates than traditional business finance providers. 

Businesses that may traditionally struggle to get business finance will find it easier to get approved, especially those that have only been trading for a few months. 

YouLend’s Growth

Although YouLend has yet to achieve profitability, this isn’t all that uncommon among fast-growing fintechs. Large backing from J.P. Morgan has allowed the company to focus on scaling up and developing the necessary technology to deliver their funding promises.

YouLend has seen significant revenue growth since last year, growing 161% to £67.2 million. While being eight years into trading without profits is a concern, the growth in revenue helped cut 2023’s losses down by 70% to £2 million.

	2023	2022	Change
Turnover	£67.2M	£25.9M	161%
Profit / (Loss)	(£2M)	(£6.7)	-70%

This growth is highlighted in staff numbers growing from 33 in 2020 to 255 in 2023. In 2024, it was announced that YouLend provided 150,000 instances of financing to companies since its launch.

YouLend Competitors

Due to the business financing sector becoming increasingly diverse, YouLend faces a broad range of competition but the four direct MCA lenders that are its main competitors are considered to be:

• Liberis
• 365 Finance
• Capify
• Nucleus

Liberis is arguably their closest competitor, with an impressive TrustPilot rating and a technology-first approach to revenue-based financing.

YouLend Partnerships

YouLend is currently partnered with popular payment service providers, acquirers, ISOs, clouding accounting software providers, brokers, Saas providers, marketplaces, payment platforms and e-commerce platforms in the US, UK and Europe.

It has also incorporated its embedded finance solution within large e-commerce platforms and marketplaces such as:

• eBay (Ebay Seller Capital)
• Amazon (Amazon Lending)
• Shopify (Shopify Capital)
• JustEat

Just recently, YouLend partnered with Electronic Payments, a payment processor and organisation of Wells Fargo Bank, meaning YouLend’s products can now reach a further 50,000+ merchants in the US.