Hydr promises payments against invoices within 24 hours for a fee.

Co-founded by Mancunian Nicola Weedall and Hector Macandrew, Manchester-based fintech start-up Hydr (pronounced Hi-der) launched today its proprietary invoice finance platform. It pays out small businesses the value of their invoice within 24 hours, less a fee. (Business Manchester)

COVID and small businesses

Small businesses in the U.K. reeling from the pandemic are vulnerable to another problem – delayed or frozen payments from customers.

About 62% of all SMEs are facing this acute problem, according to Hydr, exacerbating the already poor payment culture that prevails in the U.K.

Hydr addresses the resulting cash flow problem at small businesses by fully digital onboarding, funding decisions in real-time, transparent terms, and fixed fees on its invoice finance platform. Hydr has integrated with the global small business platform Xero (ASX: XRO).

Hydr does not charge any fees to set up an account or to go through the onboarding process. Nor does it charge any subscription fees or listing fees.

However, businesses must be on Xero’s cloud accounting software package for Hydr’s platform to work. Once connected to Xero, funding decisions are provided in real-time; businesses create their invoice (s) in one simple step, a fixed fee is calculated for the invoice and Hydr takes care of the payment.

Says Nicola Weedall: “The success of a business shouldn’t be determined by its ability to wait for payment. I’ve seen first-hand the transformative impact that managing cash flow has, so we remove the barrier of waiting for payment by paying invoices in full within 24 hours. Our technology securely simplifies the whole process, end to end, with transparency and simplicity at the heart of our proposition.”

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