SAPI

SAPI is a London and Hanoi-based embedded finance company that places credit directly inside payment flows, enabling small and micro businesses to access working capital at the moment they receive revenue — without bank applications, manual repayment schedules or the administrative friction that excludes many underserved founders from mainstream lending. Its repayment-at-source model automatically collects loan repayments from future revenues as they arrive through partner payment platforms, aligning debt service directly with business performance.

The company was founded in 2019 by Mai Le and Alexis van Lennep, with the explicit mission of serving business owners most frequently denied credit by traditional lenders. To date, SAPI has advanced more than $40 million to small businesses, 90% of which are immigrant- or woman-owned — a figure that reflects the founding team's conviction that access to capital can fundamentally alter the trajectory of an entrepreneur's life. The company has recently established a regulated fintech entity in Vietnam to accelerate growth across Asia-Pacific markets.

SAPI's infrastructure combines AI-powered credit underwriting, loan servicing and capital access into a single stack that payment platform partners can embed without building banking capabilities in house. The platform currently serves independent retailers, hospitality operators and e-commerce sellers across the UK and internationally, with plans to deepen integrations and push into embedded payments capabilities as a next strategic layer.

SAPI closed a £60m financing package in November 2025 — approximately £55m in debt and £5m in equity — led by US alternative credit manager Hudson Cove Capital Management, with continued participation from Triple A Capital and Passion Capital. The term sheet for the credit facility was signed just 17 days after the first investor meeting, a pace that reflects strong conviction in SAPI's model and its demonstrated traction with underserved small business founders.