ANNA and YouLend launch embedded finance for small businesses
ANNA, the UK business account that handles your admin so you don’t have to, has partnered with embedded finance provider YouLend to bring this funding into the ANNA app.
Rather than applying for a loan and waiting weeks for a decision, the funding works as an advance on a business’s own trading history. Businesses receive funding in as little as 24 hours, against their projected revenue, and it is settled automatically from a share of revenue as it continues to come in – adjusted to seasonality and slow days in your business.
The launch comes as small businesses report increasingly tight cash flow more broadly. Analysis from the Credit Protection Association found 42% of small firms were paid late in the past year – more than double the rate from summer 2024 – while appetite for traditional external funding has fallen to a record low of 40%, down from 63% in 2023.
Businesses are using the funding to stock up before a busy season, cover payroll during a slower month, or fund the kind of investment that turns a good month into a better one. This could mean taking on new inventory ahead of anticipated high demand to paying rent on a new site or refurbishing an existing shop or restaurant.
The partnership also reflects demand ANNA was already seeing organically. As of today, over 1,531 ANNA customers have already signed up to use YouLend with a total funding volume of £44.8m. This equates to an average of £29,300 per business, as part of their working capital solutions. The existing appetite for merchant cash advance among ANNA’s customers was a core driver behind the two companies partnering up to fully embed this financial product into the ANNA customer experience and enable businesses to get access to funds almost instantly. The partnership reinforces ANNA’s strategy to connect customers with trusted, market-leading providers of essential business services, all in one place.
Boris Diakonov, Co-CEO of ANNA, said: “Most small businesses aren’t short on revenue, they’re short on timing. The money’s coming, it’s just not here yet. This isn’t about waiting for a bank to say yes to a loan, with YouLend it’s about putting the revenue your business is already generating to work now, today – instead of waiting for it to land sometime next week. We built ANNA to get admin out of people’s way – waiting for your own money to arrive shouldn’t be one more thing on that list.”
“Partnering with ANNA means we can meet businesses where they already manage their finances, rather than asking them to go looking for funding elsewhere,” said Dan Sinclair-Taylor, Country Head UK & ROI at YouLend. “ANNA customers already trust the app to handle their admin, so embedding funding into that same experience just made sense, it’s one less relationship for a business to manage, not another one to set up.”
Eligible ANNA customers are pre-qualified for funding based on their trading history and guided seamlessly through the application process within the app. Rather than relying solely on assets or credit history, funding amounts are calculated using revenue the business is already generating including income from marketplace sales and payment provider flows. YouLend, which provides the funding, claims 80% of pre-qualified customers go on to be approved (eligibility criteria apply).