London’s Adfin Secures $18M to Scale Finance Automation

Key Takeaways

1. London-based fintech Adfin closed an $18 million Series A round led by Index Ventures, with participation from Visionaries Club, Stéphane Kurgan (ex-COO of King), and Andrey Khusid (founder of Miro)
2. Total funding now exceeds $30 million, reached in under two years since the company’s founding in 2024
3. Adfin’s platform currently serves 1,500+ businesses across the UK, with users reporting only 9% of invoices paid late, versus a UK SME average of 63%
4. Fresh capital will fund international expansion, broader cashflow management features, and hiring across engineering and sales

Quick Recap

London-based fintech Adfin has raised $18 million in a Series A funding round, bringing its total capital raised to more than $30 million in less than two years. The round was led by Index Ventures, with backing from Visionaries Club and notable new investors Stéphane Kurgan and Andrey Khusid. The announcement was first reported by @TheSaaSNews on X (formerly Twitter) and subsequently confirmed by tech publication Tech.eu on May 11, 2026.

Agentic Finance in Action

Adfin’s technology sits at the intersection of payments infrastructure and AI-driven workflow automation. Its flagship “Autopilot” feature functions as an AI credit controller that sends payment reminders from a firm’s own email domain, replicating the tone and templates of the finance team. Alongside this, Adfin’s “Bridge” tool operates without any API integration required: it logs into a customer’s existing accounting or ERP system, locates invoice data, and pulls it directly into the Adfin platform.

Together, these tools form what the company describes as an “agentic” finance layer that keeps humans firmly in control while removing the repetitive, manual work from collections and cash movement. CEO Tom Pope framed the ambition clearly: “By owning both the underlying financial infrastructure and the agentic workflows on top, we’ll let finance teams deploy agents in a way nobody else can”.

The company already integrates with platforms including Xero and QuickBooks, and accepts payments via card, direct debit, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. With the new capital, Adfin plans to expand beyond accounts receivable into full end-to-end cashflow management, a move that would make it a broader financial operations platform for SMEs.

Late Payments, AI, and the SME Problem

The timing of this raise reflects a real and persistent challenge in the UK economy. Nearly 63% of invoices issued by small and medium-sized businesses are paid late, creating chronic pressure on cash flow and stunting growth. For professional services firms such as accountants, lawyers, and healthcare providers, the manual overhead of chasing payments is both costly and time-consuming. Agentic AI tools are now mature enough to address this systematically, and investors are noticing.

Index Ventures partner Julia André noted that Adfin’s founders have “the rare ability to obsess over a problem and build category-defining businesses,” adding that the firm is “tripling down” given the results the platform has already delivered.

The broader market context is equally important. AI-powered finance automation is attracting serious attention globally in 2026, with platforms like Kognitos and ChatFin also competing for finance team workflows. However, most of these tools sit on top of existing payment infrastructure, whereas Adfin owns both the payment rails and the automation layer, a structural advantage that is hard to replicate quickly.

Competitive Landscape

Adfin vs. Its Nearest Rivals

Adfin operates in the UK SME accounts receivable and finance automation market, where its closest peers at a similar stage are Kolleno and Chaser.

Strategic Analysis

Adfin holds a clear edge in agentic automation depth and proprietary payment infrastructure, which makes it a more vertically integrated solution than either Kolleno or Chaser. Chaser, however, benefits from a decade of customer trust, a global footprint of 7,000+ businesses, and proven cash flow forecasting tools that Adfin has not yet fully built out.

TechnoTrenz’s Takeaway

I’ll be direct: I think this is a genuinely exciting raise, and not just because of the dollar amount. In my experience covering fintech funding rounds, the ones that stand out are those where the product already has something to show before the Series A is even announced. Adfin is not theorizing about agentic finance; it has a live platform used by over 1,500 businesses that has already cut late payment rates from 63% to 9% for its users. That kind of real-world validation at this stage is rare.

What I find particularly compelling is the structural bet Adfin is making. Most competitors bolt AI onto a standard invoicing workflow. Adfin built its own payment rails first, then layered the automation on top. That combination is harder to replicate, and it gives the company leverage to grow into broader cash management without depending on another platform’s infrastructure.

The involvement of Andrey Khusid, founder of Miro, is also worth noting. Miro is a company that scaled a professional workflow tool globally, and his experience with product-led growth could matter a lot as Adfin prepares for international expansion.