ThinCats announces year-on-year rise in lending for 2025
ThinCats, the leading alternative finance provider to mid-sized SMEs has today published its lending figures for 2025. Over the past 12 months, ThinCats provided £348m of funding to businesses across the UK, an increase compared to 2024.
ThinCats saw a spike in borrowing from companies across a range of sectors, fuelling it’s lending growth. These sectors included: IT & telecoms, healthcare, professional and financial services. There was also an expansion in private equity backed sponsored deals.
While the broader economic and political environment has dampened activity, especially among owner managed businesses, according to Experian, ThinCats continues to be the number one alternative debt provider for M&A funding, by volume, across the UK.
In total, ThinCats has now lent more than £2.3bn to businesses across the UK with assets under management of £700m. ThinCats was acquired by Shawbrook Bank in October 2025, but continues to operate as a separate brand.
Mike Hackett, chief commercial officer, ThinCats: “Despite the broad continued caution and a wait and see approach in the market, there are clearly still businesses that are looking to grow. Across lending in the lower mid-market over the past couple of years, we’ve seen a reduction in the number of deals, but the value has increased. Unsurprisingly, some sectors are subdued like retail, leisure and hospitality – but there are outliers in this space. However, our lending numbers show there are still deals to be done, there continues to be strong demand in business services like IT, telecoms, software providers as well as in healthcare.
“The state of the economy does impact business and its appetite to lend – but there are some very strong regional businesses that are doing well and require capital to grow, acquire and invest.”