Fox Williams advised Allica Bank on £100 million equity raise

Fox Williams advised Allica Bank, the leading fintech SME challenger bank, on a £100 million equity raise led by new US growth investor TCV alongside Allica’s existing investors Warwick Capital Partners and Atalaya Capital Management.

This new investment allows Allica to scale rapidly and accelerate its disruptive impact in the UK SME market, following the bank’s impressive growth.

The Fox Williams team was led by corporate partner Guy Morgan and supported by corporate associates Beth Silkin, Georgie Glover, and Chien-Wei Lui.

Allica Bank, which has a UK banking licence, provides banking services to small and medium sized enterprises.

TCV is a California based growth technology investor in global household names such as Airbnb, Spotify, Netflix and Revolut.

This additional fundraising round follows the £110 million equity raise and acquisition of a c.£600 million loan portfolio from Allied Irish Bank (AIB) on which Fox Williams advised Allica at the end of 2021.

Since the 2021 fundraising, Allica Bank achieved monthly profitability in June 2022, reached £1 billion of lending to SMEs in July, and in August successfully migrated the second and final tranche of customers from AIB.

Guy Morgan said: “Allica Bank is one of the success stories of recent years and we’re delighted to continue to play such a key role in its success including advising on this latest round of fundraising. In particular, it’s a demonstration of our ability to act for challenger banks and other disruptive fintech companies on business critical transactions.

“The deal gives Allica Bank exceedingly good foundations to build on what it has already achieved as a business.”

Kate Valdar, general counsel of Allica Bank said “We’re very grateful to Guy and the whole team at Fox Williams for all their help in securing the additional investment.

“This has been done in the face of challenging market conditions and at a time when other fintechs are finding investment harder to find. Fox Williams has been an excellent legal adviser to us for a number of years and we’re grateful for their continued expertise and support.”