Manchester-based coding training company Northcoders secures £1.5m finance package from NatWest, including £1m IP-backed loan

Manchester-based Northcoders, an edu-tech company which specialises in training students in advanced data skills, has taken advantage of NatWest’s ground-breaking high growth IP-backed finance loan. This allows the company to use its intellectual property (IP) as collateral to secure £1m in debt funding as part of a total £1.5m financing package.

Inngot and NatWest partnered to develop the IP-backed loan concept, and the bank uses Inngot's world-first online toolkit to identify and evaluate the real value of its IP, and to demonstrate its suitability as collateral for lending.

Northcoders is using the financing to support its next stage of growth, including the expansion of its service offering with the launch of a new bootcamp focused on data engineering, AI, and machine learning.

Northcoders says in a press release that some of the new funds will be used to refinance an existing £400,000 loan with Creative England, on which it was paying 11% interest.

In a demonstration of how the NatWest loan enables companies to leverage their valuable IP to lower the cost of funding, Northcoders says that the new NatWest package offers a significantly improved fixed rate of 3.5% above base rates, with the £1m secured against the IP coming in at a fixed rate 2.5% above base over a four-year term.

Chris Hill, CEO of Northcoders, said:

“We are delighted to start this new relationship with NatWest, with the terms of the arrangement highlighting the significant maturity of Northcoders and our internally built IP in recent years.”

“The UK’s economic growth is being held back by the digital skills gap, and therefore we are confident that the demand for Group’s first-class technology training will continue. The recent efforts of both private and public organisations to integrate AI and Machine Learning into the workplace is a demonstration of the importance of businesses like Northcoders which can provide the infrastructure for future growth.”