Novuna Business Finance
The UK's largest non-bank asset finance provider, part of Mitsubishi HC Capital, writing equipment finance, block discounting and £3m to £15m of sustainable project finance.
What they do
Novuna Business Finance lends against assets rather than earnings, through hire purchase, finance and operating leases, block discounting for other finance providers, stock finance for dealers, and a project finance line writing £3m to £15m into infrastructure, energy storage and clean energy. It serves more than 25,000 UK businesses, mostly through brokers, which is its largest channel, alongside vendor programmes and direct sales. Three years of trading history is required, and there are no unsecured loans.
Where they fit in a lower-mid-market raise
The project finance line is the part that reaches a lower-mid-market corporate directly: a solar installation, a battery storage asset or an infrastructure project sized between £3m and £15m has a home here, on a single facility, from a lender with a Japanese banking group behind it. Elsewhere the business funds the equipment tranche in a wider structure, at the scale a company with a real fleet needs.
Where they are not the fit
Standard asset finance is equipment-backed, so it cannot fund an acquisition of a trading business. Block discounting funds other lenders rather than corporate borrowers. Three years of trading is a hard requirement, which rules out newly-formed vehicles, and no rates are published.
Published terms
- Pricing
- Not published
- Speed to terms
- Not published
- Sponsored or sponsorless
- Corporate or SME direct and broker-introduced; serves over 25,000 UK business customers from SMEs to larger corporations. No stated private-equity sponsor LBO appetite - asset-backed and project finance rather than sponsor leverage
- Where they lend
- UK-wide (GB including. England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland)
- How they decide
- Quoted case by case; no published rates or standardised terms. Routes to market via brokers (largest channel, £422m new business), vendors/dealers/distributors, and direct-to-SME online
As published by the lender and last reviewed August 2026. Terms quoted on a deal are set by the credit, not by a published band.
The desks that lend
Novuna Business Finance lends through 5 separate books. Which one reads a deal decides the security, the covenant package and the band, so the question is rarely whether Novuna Business Finance lends, but which of these would own it.
Hire purchase
- Security
- Secured on the financed asset; variable deposits and balloon payments available
- Funds
- Growth · Refinance
- Rules out
- Minimum 3 years trading history; No unsecured business loans offered; UK-based entity only
Finance lease / operating lease (business finance leasing)
- Security
- Novuna retains title to the asset; business pays regular rentals, no ownership transfer at lease end
- Funds
- Growth · Refinance
- Rules out
- Minimum 3 years trading history; UK-based entity only
Project finance (sustainable / infrastructure)
- Facility
- £3m to £15m
- Security
- Secured project finance for energy storage and infrastructure assets; channel wrote over £100m of new facilities in FY reported June 2024
- Funds
- Growth
- Rules out
- Sustainable or infrastructure asset focus
Block discounting
- Facility
- from £500k
- Security
- Funds advanced against blocks of a lender's own receivables agreements; client retains collection
- Funds
- Growth · Refinance
- Rules out
- For independent funding providers, not end-user SMEs
Stock finance
- Security
- Working capital raised against business inventory or dealer stock
- Funds
- Growth
Limits that apply across the firm
Stated limits, taken from Novuna Business Finance’s own published criteria, beyond the ones each desk carries above. A limit is where a lender starts from, not where it always ends: several of these move on a strong enough credit.
- No appetite in no unsecured business loans
How they sit against the category
- Its published ceiling is £15m; 15 of the 40 asset-based lenders here go at least as high.
- Like 29 of the 40, it publishes no indicative price — a margin comes from a conversation, not a page.
- It lends through 5 distinct desks, where most firms here run one or two.
Counted across the 40 asset-based & asset-finance lenders in this directory, on what each one publishes. What a lender discloses and what it will do are different things.
Questions this page answers
How large a facility does Novuna Business Finance write?
Published facilities run £500k to £15m. A band is what a lender states it will do, not what it will do on a given credit.
Does Novuna Business Finance lend to companies without a private-equity sponsor?
Yes. Novuna Business Finance lends to owner-managed and corporate borrowers, and publishes no private-equity sponsor proposition.
Where does Novuna Business Finance lend?
UK-wide (GB including. England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland).
What does Novuna Business Finance lend?
The published product set is hire purchase, finance lease / operating lease, project finance, block discounting. Published sector focus is agriculture, construction, dealerships, energy storage, finance providers.
Sources
This profile is a curated reference note drawn from public sources, not financial advice or a recommendation. Appetite and terms change; a lender's fit for a given credit is established by approaching it, not inferred from a page.