The specialist bank secured the investment from the Clermont Group, Toscafund and Coltrane, who have purchased a stake in the region of 16% in OakNorth.

The bank intends to use the funding to launch its fintech platform ACORN around the world.

ACORN allows lenders to originate, underwrite, monitor and book transactions faster, more efficiently and with more rigour.

“Rather than building a technology platform and then going to market trying to sell it, we wanted to build the platform and prove the concept in a highly regulated and highly competitive market – the UK – via OakNorth,” said Rishi Khosla, CEO and co-founder of OakNorth.

“Through ACORN, we will be able to help lenders around the world unlock the underserved and underestimated market for bespoke loans to SMEs.”

ACORN's cloud-based technology sources millions of data items on SMEs across various sectors and provides data to allow lenders to make more informed credit decisions.

Rishi said that it had been an extremely humbling two years for OakNorth, where it has helped over 150 business achieve their growth ambitions.

“While we have reached an £800m loan book in two years, we know that this represents just a fraction of the businesses that need financing support.

“This funding will enable us to boost our lending by an additional £1.5bn and add thousands more jobs and homes in the UK.”