51. Funding Invoice

Founder: Aamar Aslam
Founded: October 2015 (January 2016)
Website: fundinginvoice.com

A genuine struggle for thousands of small businesses across the UK, late payments is a problem for even the most ambitious, and fast-growing companies.

Having run his own chauffeur and limo service where he supplied cars to corporate companies, while juggling his studies at the University of Warwick, then 19 year-old Aamar Aslam found he was waiting up to 90 days for payment from clients – and was struggling to pay his staff as a result.

To resolve his cashflow issues at the time, the young entrepreneur to watch sought to secure a six-figure bank loan – only to be laughed out the door when he met with the bank manager.

After eventually raising finance via a private investor and repaying this finance as his invoices came through, Aslam began to wonder how many other small businesses would benefit from a similar system. With this lightbulb moment, Funding Invoice was born.

Launching the business after he graduated University, Aslam’s fintech start-up Funding Invoice aims to be faster, more flexible, more affordable and more transparent than traditional lenders and high street banks.

Competing with the likes of Startups 100 alumni MarketInvoice, the start-up allows businesses to borrow money against their invoices on “favourable terms”, taking a small percentage fee from each funded invoice – a tempting proposition for the cash strapped businesses of Britain.

Today, the 23 year-old’s business has facilitated £6m funding to small firms and now employs eight members of staff. Aslam is confident he can growth both numbers to £25m and 12 respectively in the coming months.

A business bore out of a burden faced by too many start-ups across the country, Funding Invoice is a welcome addition to our Startups 100 2017 index.