Bourn secures strategic minority investment from NatWest Group in funding round

Source: Hard Numbers

Bourn, the UK fintech reinventing the business overdraft for the growth economy, has raised £3.5 million in new funding to expand the reach of its Flexible Trade Account (FTA), a modern working capital solution giving small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) real-time access to flexible secured funding.

The round includes a strategic minority investment from NatWest Group, alongside funding from other investors including McPike Global Family Office, Haatch, Love Ventures, Portfolio Ventures and Aperture.

The capital will be used to deepen Bourn’s account functionality, grow its team, and scale through new financial services and platform partnerships that bring working capital directly into the systems businesses already use.

Through its strategic investment, NatWest aims to gain insights from Bourn’s Flexible Trade Account (FTA) to explore how embedded working capital can strengthen cash flow access for entrepreneurs and businesses across the UK – giving traditionally underserved customers greater support to grow and thrive.

Nick Tracey, co-founder and chief executive officer of Bourn, said: “2025 has been a year of validation, proving that SMEs and their funding partners need a more modern, data-driven approach to working capital. This investment round is a huge vote of confidence. It shows that established banks see the same opportunity we do: to bring liquidity closer to the point of need and help businesses fund growth more dynamically.

“Our goal is to reinvent the business overdraft for SMEs. When working capital flows easily, businesses invest, hire, and grow. That’s how we make finance work for the real economy again.”

Ladi Greenstreet, head of strategic investments at NatWest Group, added: “Now more than ever, SMEs need the right support to scale and grow – which is why Bourn’s offering has so much potential. Their founding team combines deep banking expertise with genuine fintech innovation, while their capabilities complement our ambition to help customers access working capital seamlessly through the platforms they already use.

“Supporting Bourn reinforces our commitment to helping fintechs thrive while ensuring our commercial mid-market customers can access the funding and support they need.”

Bourn is tackling the funding gap that SMEs sometimes face by embedding overdraft-style flexibility directly into the bank accounts and financial platforms SMEs already operate, thereby removing friction and unlocking a faster, fairer flow of capital.

At the heart of its approach is the Flexible Trade Account, which integrates payments, current account functionality, and instant access to secured working capital. Powered by real-time data and an AI-driven risk engine, the FTA enables businesses to pay suppliers faster, manage cash flow intelligently, and fund growth without taking on additional debt.

Bourn has been piloting the solution with Investec for several months now, working with live customers to validate the solution as an alternative to traditional offerings. The initial results have been overwhelmingly positive, with the bank seeing the solution as a potential ‘game-changer’ for the industry.

Beyond NatWest and Investec, Bourn is integrating with a growing network of financial institutions, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, accounting platforms, and B2B marketplaces. This embedded model allows its working-capital solution to reach businesses within their existing financial workflows, helping finance providers deliver on-demand funding with minimal operational complexity.

By positioning itself as the infrastructure layer for embedded SME finance, Bourn enables partners to deploy flexible, receivable-backed funding at scale, reducing distribution costs while accelerating SME access to productive capital.

Further reading: NatWest Group makes minority investment in Yonder