London-based credit research start-up, 9fin is reportedly in talks to raise capital that would value it at some $1bn which would bring it unicorn status.
Founded in London in 2016 by former investment banking analysts Steven Hunter, from Belfast, and Huss El-Sheikh, 9fin was part of Google’s AI residency in 2016 – when it summed up its mission as “AI-powered financial data.”
The founders have said that while they worked inside large investment banks they realised that teams were planning and executing billion-dollar credit deals “using tools built decades ago – spreadsheets, PDFs, even fax machines”. They said that the issue was not lack of information, rather that “no one could process it at scale”. So they quit their day jobs to launch 9fin.
Now Bloomberg is reporting that the young company is in talks to raise fresh capital that would value it at $1bn, having raised $50m in a Series B round back in 2024, led by Highland Europe. Sources told them that 9fin is in talks with a group of venture capital and growth equity funds about participating in the new round. 9fin claims that the top ten investment banks in the world use its AI products, as well as 80pc of credit trading desks.
After the 2024 round, 9fin was valued at $478.8m, according to Pitchbook figures, with investors including Spark Capital, Redalpine Venture Partners and Seedcamp. If this new round pans out that would be a more than doubling of its valuation in the space of 18 months.
According to 9fin it has raised $87m in funding to date, and currently employs some 350 people out of its London base. It is a hot market, with 9fin competitor Octus (formerly Reorg Research) being snapped up by Permira for $1.3bn back in 2022.
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