We offer clear, honest support to help you secure the funding your business needs — whether you're just starting out or ready to scale. Our experts are here to listen, advise, and guide you to the most suitable financial solution.
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Get access to competitive funding to launch or grow your business. Your profile goes to mainstream banks and alternative lenders at the same time, so you are comparing real offers rather than chasing them one by one.
Bridge financial gaps and stay agile with the right finance products — because waiting to get paid shouldn't mean waiting to grow.
Finance business-critical tools, tech or machinery without the upfront burden, spreading the cost over the life of the asset.
Your Found Funding profile is matched against Swoop's panel of banks, alternative lenders, equity funds and grant agencies — one search instead of one application at a time.
A few quick questions — it takes minutes, not meetings.
See the funding options relevant to your business.
Our experts help you weigh up the options.
No pressure, no hidden fees — you stay in control.
Most of the money wasted on business finance is not wasted on a bad rate. It is wasted on the right amount borrowed through the wrong product — a short-term facility doing a long-term job, or a term loan funding a gap that comes and goes. Getting the shape right usually matters more than shaving a point off the price.
A rough guide to which is which. Buying equipment or vehicles points to asset finance, because it is secured on the item itself and therefore cheaper and more accessible than unsecured borrowing — notably so for a young business with little trading history. Waiting on customer payments points to invoice finance or a revolving facility, both of which flex with the gap rather than sitting at a fixed limit. A one-off project with a clear payback points to a term loan. An unpredictable seasonal dip points to something you can draw and repay rather than a lump sum. And a capital project may well point to a grant alongside borrowing rather than instead of it, since most schemes are match-funded and expect you to bring part of the cost.
You build one profile rather than filling in six application forms. That profile is matched against the panel, and what comes back is the set of options you are actually eligible for — which is a meaningfully different list from the set that exists. Nothing is submitted to a lender until you decide to proceed, so the matching step does not put hard searches on your credit file.
That last point is worth dwelling on. Applying to a dozen lenders in a fortnight is the single most common self-inflicted wound in business borrowing: multiple hard credit searches in a short window are visible to every subsequent lender and read as distress, so a business that appears to have been turned down repeatedly becomes a worse risk than one that never applied. Filtering on eligibility first avoids that entirely.
Applications stall far more often than they are refused, and they stall because information arrives in pieces over three weeks. A file that goes cold frequently becomes a decline — not because the answer changed, but because nobody picked it back up.
Gathering the following before you start typically halves the elapsed time: your last two years of accounts if you have them; recent management figures, because filed accounts can be nine months out of date and a lender is pricing risk today; six to twelve months of business bank statements; details of any existing borrowing, including anything secured; and a short, plain explanation of what the money is for and how it will be repaid. If you are early stage, add your own credit position and a forecast that has been stress-tested rather than one that turns profitable in month three.
We cannot promise approval, and we would be cautious of anyone who does — finance is always subject to status and the decision sits with the lender. We are not a lender ourselves and we do not make credit decisions. We do not provide regulated financial advice; what we provide is access to a funding panel and a plain explanation of how the products differ.
Where a question is really an accounting or tax question — how a grant will be taxed, whether hire purchase or leasing is better for your capital allowances position, what a facility does to your balance sheet before a lender looks at it — that is worth putting to whoever prepares your accounts. Those answers change the real cost, and they are much cheaper to get before you sign than after.
The six categories above are how most people think about business finance. The panel behind them is considerably wider, and the product that fits your situation is often one you had not heard of. A quick tour of what exists, so you know what to ask for.
Secured and unsecured term loans are the familiar ones. Alongside them sit commercial mortgages for buying or refinancing premises, bridging and development finance for property projects with a defined exit, and acquisition finance where you are buying another business or a competitor. Management buyout finance covers the case where the existing team is buying the company, and mezzanine finance sits between debt and equity for larger deals — convertible if things go wrong, and priced accordingly.
Invoice finance and revolving credit facilities are the main two, but there are more specific tools. VAT and tax loans spread a lumpy quarterly bill rather than letting it flatten a month's cash flow. Supply chain finance advances cash to your suppliers against your credit rather than theirs, which can buy you longer terms without damaging anyone. Import and export finance funds goods in transit, which is where a lot of growing product businesses get stuck. Merchant cash advances repay as a share of card takings and suit retail and hospitality, where a quiet month should mean a smaller repayment.
Asset finance covers plant, machinery and equipment, with car and van finance as the specific case most businesses meet first. Franchise finance exists for buying into an established brand, where lenders will often look more favourably on a proven model than on a standing start.
Refinancing and debt consolidation combines several facilities into one, which can reduce the rate, the admin or both — though it is worth checking early repayment charges on what you are clearing before you assume there is a saving. A business credit card is the simplest revolving facility of all and is often overlooked for small, recurring spend.
Grants are non-repayable, and match funding exists precisely because most grant schemes will not cover the whole project. If a scheme has a 40% intervention rate, you have to find the other 60% — and a match funding facility is a loan designed to be exactly that contribution. Lining the two up together is far stronger than winning a grant and then discovering you cannot fund your share of it.
Not every product suits every business, and several of these are only available above certain sizes. The point of the matching step is that you do not have to work out which is which in advance.
It takes a few minutes to see what your business is eligible for. Free, impartial, no pressure.
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