UK’s fintech startup Viable bags €2.8M to help SMB merchants deal with financial woes
London-based Viable, an Intelligent Finance platform designed for D2C, multi-channel and wholesale commerce brands, announced that it has closed £2.4M (approximately €2.81M) in its seed round of funding.
Viable streamlines finance operations and optimises working capital for the next generation of online and multi-channel sellers.
Investors supporting Viable
The investment came from Episode 1, Haatch, Portfolio Ventures, and a group of angel investors led by Martin Brailsford, former founder and CEO of Internet Fusion. This round follows a previous pre-seed in 2023 led by the same group of angel investors.
Simon Murdoch, managing partner of Episode 1, says, “Given my background at Amazon and then as an investor in a number of e-commerce businesses I understood how hard it is for them to predict their cashflow and decide what strategic moves to make to improve profits and cashflow.”
“It’s also really hard to get expert finance advice cost-effectively. Viable makes it easy for business owners to plan ahead and achieve commercial success.”
Intelligent Finance for digital commerce brands
Viable builds verticalised finance tech for a new kind of online and multi-channel merchants to make financial tasks easier and help businesses use their money better. It does that by leveraging recent developments in open banking, payments, and AI infrastructure.
According to Viable, many sellers on platforms like Shopify, Amazon, and TikTok have noticed “dramatic” changes in equity, debt and credit landscape after COVID-19. Costs are increasing, competition is getting tougher, and borrowing money or getting credit is harder. This makes it tough for them to manage their money well and do their best financially.
Co-founder and CEO of Viable, Franklyn Martin, says, “There’s a growing disconnect between traditional financial management processes and how early-stage brands need to operate. The next generation of DTC success stories need to scale with leaner teams and exceptional early finance performance.”
“We’re building an intelligent finance product that gives merchants that capability – to process transactions, report finance measures, adapt budgets, visualise scenarios, access funding and ultimately improve finance outcomes.”
Viable released their tech last year to help with finance problems for sellers in fashion, beauty, and health. Now, with seed funding, the company aims to accelerate its development of embedded finance products, increasing accessibility for merchants.
The company was founded in 2023 by Franklyn Martin, Henry Young and Steven Haynes.
