Growth Street

The business model centered on facilitating 30-day loans, which provided investors with liquidity at relatively short notice while offering SMEs ongoing access to funds. Growth Street utilized cloud-based software to analyze a business's financial data in real-time, integrating with accounting packages like Xero to make faster credit decisions. Revenue was generated by matching borrowers and lenders in a dynamic marketplace. For investors, the platform offered returns of up to 6.5% annually and featured a provision fund to mitigate losses from borrower defaults.

The company gained Appointed Representative status from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in late 2016, which allowed it to open the platform to individual retail investors. By mid-2019, Growth Street had lent over £100 million and had ambitions to finance £1 billion of the UK's SME funding gap by 2022. However, the economic challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted the business. In July 2020, after failing to secure the necessary institutional funding to remain sustainable, Growth Street announced it would enter a solvent wind-down. The company's affairs were fully wound up by January 2023, after successfully repaying all retail investors in full.