Why we invested in Firenze

Outward has a long-standing thesis around the power of combining technology, networks and innovative models to open up exclusive financial products to a much larger audience. We view Firenze as the embodiment of this and set out why we believe it is primed to become the next category defining fintech at the intersection of Wealth and Lending.

Lombard lending – lines of credit secured against marketable assets or a portfolio of assets – is believed to have been created in 14^th century Italy. Loans were offered to wealthy rulers, merchants and officials who possessed high-value assets, such as art and precious metals, that could be pledged as collateral to borrow at competitive rates of interest. Fast forward 700 years, and financial institutions are now estimated by Deloitte to issue $4.3tn worth of Lombard loans per annum globally. Whilst collateral has shifted to liquid securities (e.g. stocks, bonds), this has remained a product offered primarily to ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWI). Lombard lending has grown in popularity amongst this demographic due to its speed, flexibility and competitive pricing, and is used for a variety of purposes where liquidating assets or alternative forms of financing may be sub-optimal. Use cases include gifting strategies, tax planning, real estate opportunities, business financing, investment opportunities or short-term liquidity needs.

Whilst the use cases outlined typically do not apply to the mainstream retail borrower, there are significant and underserved segments where these use cases apply, spanning from mass-affluent individuals (£100k-£1m) seeking solutions to manage the financing of school and university fees, or HNWs (£1-£5m) who are wealthy enough that gifting, tax planning and investment opportunities are a regular cause for consideration, but likely not wealthy enough to see the value, or meet the investible asset minimums, from the world’s leading institutions.

According to St. Jame’s Place, the mass-affluent to lower-end of HNW as defined above were estimated to account for 13.1m people in the UK by the end of 2022, and was forecast to grow to 14.3m people with £3.0tn of liquid assets by the end of 2026.

Despite the potentially significant untapped market opportunity, there are technical reasons why Lombard lending has almost exclusively been accessible to UHNWIs. This most notably includes:

1. Asset custody – Complexity surrounding the enforcement of security in the absence of direct custody has historically made this more viable for larger institutions that offer both lending and wealth management, though often with prohibitively high minimum wealth requirements.
2. Asset Monitoring – Lombard lending requires the active monitoring of the value and constituents of collateralised securities to ensure the loan remains compliant with lending terms, policies and regulations. Traditional loan management systems do not provide this capability, leading lenders to manage this process manually. As a result, lenders optimise for a lower volume of much larger loans, leading to high minimum loan requirements (e.g. £1m+).

The above dynamics have limited the expansion potential of Lombard lending. That said, we have long believed that with the right team, product and commercial model, the opportunity exists to address the structural challenges and unlock this significant market.

Manchester-based Firenze – founded by second-time fintech founder David Newman – has developed an embedded lending platform that is opening up Lombard lending to investment platforms, wealth management firms and their audience of clients.

Its platform offers qualifying clients of its partners access to loans of between £65k-£5m at competitive rates of interest, secured against their investment portfolio. Loan decisions are made within 24 hours, disbursed within 72 hours, and issued cross-custody, meaning the borrowers portfolio remains wherever it is held as opposed to the lender requiring custody. This not only expands the potential audience, but radically transforms the user experience.

The Firenze platform, sitting at the centre connecting all participants, provides the end-to-end technology capabilities for loans to be assessed, underwritten, funded and managed. Under the hood, it has also developed standardised legal frameworks and protocols required to govern the relationship and required processes between all participants. From a funding perspective, Firenze utilises third-party capital, having secured its maiden facility of £160m with Monument Bank.

The product is distributed through partner firms as a white-labelled solution, having already signed platform distribution partners collectively representing almost £75bn in AUM, including a top 10 wealth manager. This has unsurprisingly yielded a strong pipeline of borrowers.

We first met David at the beginning of 2024 as he was beginning conversations for his pre-seed round which very quickly became oversubscribed with an impressive roster of investors.

From the first conversation, it was clear that Firenze was the culmination of David’s experience as both a private banker earlier in his career, and more recently a VC-backed fintech entrepreneur. We were struck by his depth of domain expertise, ambition, and clarity of vision for how the business would launch and scale, which was complimented by unguarded levels of honesty around the challenges that Firenze would face and need to overcome.

Excited by the potential, we took the opportunity to build a relationship with David and follow his progress closely. What quickly became apparent was the remarkable pace of execution, exceeding the ambitious milestones set across hiring, product, partners and funding, in half of the time anticipated. In addition, the response from the market evidenced this was a clear win-win-win for all participants. Borrowers are able to secure flexible funding at competitive rates whilst avoiding tax charges and return disruption. Wealth managers avoid AUM loss from the liquidation of assets in the absence of an alternative, and funders can access a relatively lower risk, high quality asset class that historically has delivered strong risk-adjusted returns.

It became increasingly obvious this was an investment we had to make, and we are thrilled to support David and his team as they forge their own path to define this exciting category.

Finally, as proud as we are to welcome Firenze to the Outward portfolio, we are equally encouraged to see the impressive calibre of fintech talent and innovation emerging from all corners of the UK, proving that UK fintech does not just live in London!