Equipal Raises £16.25M in Equity and Forward Flow Financing for AM Equipment Funding

Equipal, a UK-based fintech company specializing in equipment financing, has secured £16.25 million in a combined equity and forward flow funding round. The package includes a £1.25 million equity investment and a £15 million forward flow facility, both provided by Altum Capital. The capital is specifically allocated to support businesses acquiring advanced manufacturing equipment, including additive manufacturing machinery, through Equipal’s proprietary point-of-sale platform integrated with over 75 equipment vendors across the UK. The company previously facilitated a £66,000 3D printer purchase for Incremental-AM, a service bureau, processing the application in hours and documentation in minutes.

This funding addresses a persistent friction point in the AM value chain: the upfront capital barrier for small and mid-size manufacturers looking to adopt printer technologies. While metal PBF-LB and polymer systems have seen steady cost declines, the typical capital expenditure for an industrial machine remains a significant hurdle for UK service bureaus and job shops. Equipal’s model, which offers rapid, automated financing for purchases up to £250,000 and reports a 1.26% default rate with no credit losses to date, directly competes with traditional asset finance by digitizing the approval workflow. It fits the broader pattern of service-based adoption in the AM industry, where enabling infrastructure-rather than just hardware specs-drives adoption. The platform’s 69% repeat customer rate suggests that once manufacturers cross the financing threshold, they tend to return, indicating sticky economic utility rather than speculative one-off purchases.

For the UK AM ecosystem, this deal practically means that equipment vendors and buyers now have a standardized, low-friction financing channel that removes the negotiation and paperwork friction typical of leasing arrangements. Equipal’s immediate execution challenge is scaling its team to 12 while maintaining its credit discipline as loan volume increases. For AM buyers, the concrete takeaway is that financing for machines up to £250,000-covering most industrial polymer systems and entry-level metal PBF-LB units-can now be arranged through a single digital interface at the point of sale, effectively reducing the time from decision to installation by weeks.