Selina Finance, a London-based online lender for SMBs and consumers that leverages their home equity, raises a $150M Series B, $35M in equity and $115M in debt
Context & Ripple Effects
Selina Finance is scaling the model it proved with its $53M Series A in mid-2020: an online lender that underwrites SMB and consumer loans against borrowers' home equity. The new round is deliberately structured for that job — $115M of the $150M is debt, i.e., lendable capital for the loan book rather than operating cash.
First-order effects
- Selina can now write materially more home-equity-backed loans to UK SMB owners and consumers, with the debt tranche directly funding originations rather than headcount or product.
Second-order effects
- Non-bank rivals in London's SMB fintech cluster face a better-capitalized competitor: Tide built its lending arm by partnering with iwoca on loans up to £100K (its mobile-first SMB challenge to big banks), while Divido routes lender financing at checkout — both now compete with a lender whose collateral advantage is the borrower's house.
Third-order effects
- If equity-collateralized lending keeps attracting debt-heavy rounds, the line between consumer mortgages and small-business credit continues to blur, pushing UK SMB lending toward non-bank balance sheets anchored on property rather than cash-flow underwriting.
The trend: London fintech lenders are raising debt-weighted rounds to scale non-bank credit against property collateral, chipping away at banks' hold on SMB lending.