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Monet Secures Investment to Expand Finance Infrastructure for UK Creative Agencies
Monet, a UK-based fintech platform, has raised a new funding round combining equity and debt to scale its services for the country’s creative agencies. The company targets persistent cash flow barriers and delayed supplier payments affecting firms across advertising, content production, and digital media.
Investors in the round include Paul Rippon, co-founder of Monzo and Starling Bank; Michael Fischer of Modern Capital Group; and Dan Adler, associated with Railsr and D Squared Capital. The round also attracted backing from Force Over Mass, a venture capital firm focused on fintech, along with several angel investors.
The raise addresses a £1.1 billion backlog in unpaid invoices and unresolved short-term financing needs across the creative sector. Monet is also in discussions to secure an additional £10 million in debt funding to support its expansion plans.
A Sector with Persistent Structural Gaps
The UK’s creative industries are often viewed as high-output and innovation-driven. However, many agencies face financing constraints that prevent them from operating at scale. Monet’s team notes that creative businesses in Britain encounter funding barriers four times more frequently than companies in other sectors.
Recent data cited by the firm show that only 7% of creative agencies access bank lending, compared to 25% of general SMEs. That mismatch is linked to how lenders assess cash flow reliability in campaign-based industries, where revenue often arrives after significant upfront production costs.
Monet’s platform was developed to address these issues directly. Following a two-year research and development phase and a market pilot, the company now serves small and mid-sized agencies working across TV, digital, music, and gaming content. Among its early clients is Cowshed Collective, the agency behind Footasylum’s YouTube campaign Locked In.
The platform offers tools that integrate financial services with operational workflows. This includes financing features embedded within campaign management systems, as well as solutions for payments and administrative tracking.
Focused Product for a Defined Market
Founded by Jacob Casson, Monet positions itself as an infrastructure layer for agencies turning over between £2 million and £20 million annually. These firms typically operate lean teams and deliver multi-channel campaigns for major brands, yet they often lack access to financial tools adapted to the pace and structure of creative work.
Rather than offering generic SME loans, Monet’s system integrates with campaign schedules and production timelines, enabling access to working capital that aligns with project-based cash flow cycles.
The platform is designed to provide a unified interface for finance, payments, and administration, reducing friction for teams managing multiple client deliverables simultaneously. Monet’s aim is not only to shorten the time between work completed and payment received but to create operational stability for agencies managing growth in a fragmented sector.
Investor Confidence in a Specialist Model
Paul Rippon, whose previous ventures include two of the UK’s most recognized digital banks, described his participation in Monet as his largest angel investment to date. According to Rippon, the company is building finance infrastructure that the creative sector has lacked for years—tools designed around how media businesses actually operate, rather than how financial institutions expect them to.
Other investors echoed this view, noting the gap between the creative industry’s contribution to the UK economy and the financial products available to support it. Dan Adler, associated with Railsr and D Squared Capital, brings experience from companies building embedded finance systems, while Force Over Mass has a track record of supporting early-stage fintech ventures with sector-specific models.
Michael Fischer, of Modern Capital Group, joined the round as part of a broader thesis on operationally embedded finance in underserved B2B verticals.
The investment reflects a growing view among backers that industry-specific platforms may be better suited to solving liquidity challenges than general-purpose lenders, especially in sectors where traditional credit assessments often fail to capture business viability.
Scaling with Targeted Capital
The new capital will be used to grow Monet’s client base, improve product features, and support integration with additional campaign and production tools used across the creative economy. The company also plans to expand its team to meet rising demand among mid-sized agencies seeking more stable financial operations.
The debt funding currently under discussion would support Monet’s ability to finance larger volumes of invoice advances and short-term working capital loans tied to campaign delivery schedules.
While the funding round remains undisclosed in value, the combination of equity and prospective debt reflects a blended strategy aimed at maintaining operational flexibility while meeting client liquidity needs at scale.
Building in Response to Sector Realities
The creative sector contributes significantly to the UK economy, yet remains underbanked and underfinanced. Agencies frequently manage high-output projects with limited internal financial infrastructure, exposing them to late payments and unpredictable revenue cycles.
Monet’s development over the past two years has focused on identifying where traditional finance systems fall short in these environments. The result is a platform structured around how creative businesses work—not simply how they report results.
By aligning funding availability with production flow, Monet seeks to reduce the operational strain that comes with uneven payment timelines, helping agencies focus on delivery rather than financial firefighting.
If Monet succeeds in closing the additional £10 million debt facility, it will gain further capacity to expand its reach without shifting away from the segment it was built to serve.
