Teal, the payroll data platform building financial data solutions for the credit industry, has raised £1.4 million in pre-seed funding led by Passion Capital, with participation from ACF Investors, K Fund and prominent angel investors from notable fintechs such as Plaid and Checkout. The funding will be used to bring instant income and employment verification to millions across the UK.
Lenders still rely heavily on legacy systems to assess income and employment, using static scores and manual payslip checks that are slow, error-prone, and often incomplete. This not only limits their ability to assess risk accurately, but also prevents many people from accessing credit simply because their financial picture isn’t fully visible.
Michael Hart, CEO and Co-founder of Teal, said: “Traditional credit scoring is broken, relying too heavily on outdated processes that fail to deliver for lenders or borrowers. By being able to securely and accurately share income data, users can unlock access to credit that works for them. This investment is a vote of confidence in our mission to build better infrastructure for financial access, and give individuals more control over their financial data.”
With Consumer Duty in effect, accurately assessing borrowers with better data is key for lenders. Still, many individuals are excluded from credit simply because lenders lack access to timely and accurate income data. With Teal, lenders can access real-time verified income and employment data. Since payroll is the source of income for most people, it offers the most direct, consistent, and reliable foundation for assessing creditworthiness. Teal’s technology puts this data in the hands of both lenders and borrowers, helping lenders meet regulatory expectations, while giving individuals more control over how they access the credit they need.
Tim Mills, Managing Partner at ACF Investors, said: “By anchoring credit decisions in verified payroll data, Teal is helping reshape how affordability is measured, how loans are repaid, and ultimately, how people access credit. We are pleased to be backing Teal through its next phase of growth.”
Teal is partnering with payroll and HCM providers to bring more transparency and control to how income data is used across financial services, helping lenders streamline underwriting and perform ongoing income and employment checks. Its modular API architecture ensures faster integration and adaptability, making it easier for lenders to customise Teal to their existing workflows with minimal effort.
Teal plans to expand its data infrastructure beyond payroll to incorporate additional income and financial sources, enabling a more complete and consistent view of each borrower. The company is developing tools to support the full credit lifecycle – from origination to repayment – and employing AI-driven automation to power faster, smarter decision-making.
Will Orde, Partner at Passion Capital, said: “Teal’s payroll infrastructure is laying the foundation for a new wave of fintech products, powered by source-level payroll data. It is exactly what the credit ecosystem needs right now, and we are excited to back another great company from the UK’s thriving fintech scene.”
Teal was founded in London by experienced fintech operators Michael Hart, André Pinto, and Luchesar Cekov, bringing together complementary backgrounds across consumer banking and data infrastructure. The platform is live in the UK, helping lenders with real-time income and employment data, with growing coverage across payroll and employment systems. Teal is actively expanding its integration network and working with payroll providers to help them unlock the value of their data in credit and financial services. The company will use the new investment to deepen partnerships and integrations with UK and European payroll providers, grow the team, and scale adoption among credit platforms.
Read the orginal article: https://ffnews.com/newsarticle/funding/teal-raises-1-4-million-to-transform-credit-checks-with-real-time-payroll-data/
