B-North, the Manchester-based firm building an SME lending bank for the UK, has so far raised more than £560,000, exceeding the £500,000 target set in an extension of its latest funding round.

B-North will use the investment to further extend their cash runway as the business continues to make strong progress with the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) licensing process and closes in on completing a £20m 'Series A' funding round.

The latest crowdfunding success follows on from previous raises on the GrowthFunders and Crowdcube platforms, as well as securing investment from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Channel 4 Ventures and a £4.455m commitment from leading Estonian banking group LHV.

Once licensed, B-North will operate via a UK-wide network of ‘lending Pods’ to provide finance dynamically to regional SME businesses that are often poorly served by traditional lenders. Through its network, combined with a state-of-the-art cloud-native banking system, B-North aims to deliver loans to businesses 10x faster than the industry standard. The first of B-North's Pods are expected to open in Manchester later this year. The firm aims to disrupt the UK's £150 billion SME lending market by establishing the first truly regional lending bank in 150 years.

Investors wishing to take part in B-North’s latest funding round can find more details here.

Jonathan Thompson, Co-Founder and CEO of B-North said: “We are delighted to continue to welcome investors to B-North at such an exciting stage in our journey. Our initial target of £500,000 to add to our £3m bridge round will provide B-North with an extended cash runway to ensure that our activities can continue at pace – and allows investors to back our vision for the future of UK lending. We continue to make good progress on the banking licence process and the completion of our £20 million ‘Series A’ round ahead of the mobilisation stage which will see us start to provide much-needed funding into the underserved SME lending market.