How AI-First Marketplaces Like Funding Agent Are Rewiring SME Finance

Key takeaways

• UK government analysis with Intuit QuickBooks puts the cost of late payments at £22k per SME and 56 million lost staff-hours a year.
• The British Business Bank channelled £6.8 bn to 28,000 firms in 2024/25 and has a capacity of £25.6 bn to expand supply.
• From 1 October 2025, large suppliers to the government must pay invoices within an average of 45 days.
• Gartner expects 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously by 2028.
   

The late-payment knot

Government figures show 18% of UK SME invoices miss due dates, draining working capital and soaking up millions of admin hours. While public programmes move billions, many founders still wait weeks for approvals, forcing them to juggle payroll against unpaid bills.

“Cash may be king, but its court is run on IOUs,” says Liz Barclay, the UK Small Business Commissioner.

What Funding Agent adds to the mix

Funding Agent is an AI-driven marketplace that pulls real-time bank data (with consent), cross-checks Companies House filings and matches applicants to 150+ specialist funders covering unsecured loans, invoice finance and asset finance. Instead of batch scoring, autonomous software agents clean data, spot anomalies and draft term sheets, allowing most borrowers to see conditional offers inside 24 hours.

A three-step journey

1. Connect accounts – Open-banking feeds and cloud-accounting exports populate the profile.
2. Agentic review – Algorithms rank risk, then route the deal to qualified lenders.
3. Digital close – E-signature workflow finalises terms; funds reach accounts in as little as one day.

Policy tail-winds

From October 2025, suppliers bidding for central-government work must prove they average 45-day payment times or better. Compliance should improve liquidity, yet gaps will persist while buyers delay and sellers accept it. A live-data broker gives firms a ready safety valve when cash gaps appear.

Case snapshot

A South Shields engineering SME owed £180k on 45-day terms. By 4 pm the day it uploaded records to Funding Agent, it held three invoice-finance offers. The board chose a 90% advance at a 1.9% fee, freeing £162k within the week and paying for a laser-cutter upgrade plus two apprentice hires.

Why agentic AI changes risk

Unlike overnight batch models, Funding Agent’s autonomous agents monitor key ratios continuously. A sudden dip in margin or spike in debtor concentration triggers an automated review, allowing lenders to tighten or extend credit quickly. Gartner sees similar agent frameworks shaping 15% of routine decisions across enterprises by 2028, hinting that finance will lead this shift.

In conclusion

Late-payment reforms may ease the strain, but survival still depends on speed-to-cash. Funding Agent shows how an AI-first marketplace can shrink the funding timetable from weeks to hours, giving SMEs the headroom to invest, hire and grow while they wait for customers to settle the bill.