Nucleus Commercial Finance alternatives: six lenders compared after the 2026 product rebuild
By the CapExpand team
Reviewed by Alex Beardsley, Founder · UK commercial finance broker
Facts checked 7 September 2026 · first published 7 September 2026
Read against nucleuscommercialfinance.com and its July and August 2026 product factsheets, Companies House, iwoca.co.uk, fleximize.com and fundingcircle.com; 365 Finance, YouLend and Capify figures are those on our own reviews of each lender.
Nucleus rebuilt its product range in the summer of 2026. Its homepage now leads with three products: a Nucleus Business Loan of £10,000 to £500,000 at 1.99% or 2.49% a month, a fallback product called Enable at 3.89% a month, and a Credit Builder loan of £3,000 to £25,000 charging 2% a week. All three require a UK homeowner as guarantor and open banking access. The revenue-based loan most comparison pages still describe (£3,000 to £300,000, repaid by fixed weekly direct debit) survives on its own page but no longer appears on the homepage.
The rebuild follows a change of ownership. Companies House records Chirag Shah, resident in India, as holding 75% or more of Nucleus Commercial Holdings from 24 October 2025, and the trade press reported the acquisition of Nucleus by his Mumbai fintech Pulse that month, followed in November 2025 by a £100 million facility from Castlelake to scale the UK book. The company that traded as Nucleus from 2011 was renamed NCF Realisations (2024) Limited in October 2024; the brand now sits on Nucleus Commercial Finance Limited, company number 14143216. Match the number on any paperwork.
This page covers six lenders on our panel that do part of Nucleus's job for a business that fails one of its tests, usually the homeowner one. Facts were checked on 7 September 2026 against Nucleus's factsheets and each lender's own pages. Our view, for what it is worth: the new range makes Nucleus a lender for property-owning directors first and for businesses second, and the alternatives below are ordered with that in mind.
Why people look past Nucleus
The homeowner guarantee. On the revenue-based loan, Nucleus's FAQ requires a personal guarantee on every loan and a guarantee from a homeowner above £75,000. On the rebuilt products the property test applies at any size: the Nucleus Business Loan factsheet lists “UK homeowner (Personal Guarantee required)” and the Credit Builder factsheet says “Must be a homeowner” for a loan that can be as small as £3,000. A director who rents is outside both, whatever the trading figures say. Our personal guarantee guide covers what a homeowner is putting behind a guarantee that the word “unsecured” does not advertise.
The weekly direct debit. The revenue-based loan is sized from revenue (up to 200% of a month's) but collected by fixed weekly direct debit over 3 to 12 months, so a quiet fortnight does not reduce the payment. Early settlement carries no charge and no rebate: every outstanding payment still falls due. Credit Builder is weekly too. On the business loan, Nucleus's own site disagrees with itself, the factsheet saying monthly and the consumer page saying weekly; ask which before signing.
The pricing, now that it is published. Business loan terms of 3 to 24 months are priced at 1.99% or 2.49% a month, terms of 25 to 60 months from 14.5% a year, Enable at 3.89% a month, and Credit Builder at 2% a week. The fees are published too: a minimum 3.5% arrangement fee on the business loan, 5% on Enable and Credit Builder, plus a broker fee of up to 5% (up to 9% on terms of 24 months or less, and a fixed 9% on Credit Builder). Two percent a week multiplied out is 104% a year before any of those fees, and the factsheet's own example repayment on Credit Builder is £380.66 a week.
The Enable trigger. The Enable factsheet says the product is offered automatically when the business loan criteria are not met, at a fixed 3.89% a month with a minimum 5% fee, and that offer terms cannot be changed once approved and validity timelines are strictly enforced. A business that applied for the 1.99% product can therefore find itself holding a 3.89% offer with a deadline. None of that is hidden. It is simply fast, and on £100,000 over 24 months the difference between the two rates runs to tens of thousands of pounds.
And the requirements stack. The business loan needs 12 months of trading (24 for terms over two years), at least one set of filed accounts, open banking as an essential requirement, and is capped at 25% of annual turnover. The revenue-based loan needs 4 months of trading and 10 transactions a month. Its FAQ also says it can sit on top of existing merchant cash advances, which is a feature for the lender and a risk for the borrower.
The alternatives at a glance
| Lender | Product | Range | Min trading | Min turnover | Repayment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| iwoca | Flexi-Loan credit facility | £1,000 to £1,000,000 | None published (start-ups capped at £10,000) | None published | Monthly; interest per 30 days on the drawn balance |
| Fleximize | Flexiloan and Flexiloan Lite term loans | £10,000 to £500,000 unsecured (£1,000,000 secured) | 6 months (Lite) or 12 months | £5,000 a month | Monthly; interest recalculated on early settlement |
| Funding Circle | Fixed-rate business loan | £10,000 to £750,000 | 1 year | None published | Monthly; fixed rate plus one-off completion fee |
| 365 Finance | Merchant cash advance | £10,000 to £500,000 | 6 months | £10,000 a month in card sales | Up to 16% of daily card takings |
| YouLend | Merchant cash advance (embedded) | £3,000 to £2,000,000 | 3 months of card sales | Around £1,500 a month in card sales | Percentage of daily card sales (up to 30%) |
| Capify | Small business loan (fixed repayments) | £10,000 to £3,000,000 | 12 months | £10,000 a month | Fixed regular instalments |
Published criteria as at 7 September 2026; every figure is subject to the lender's own checks. Inclusion is a fact about the market, not an endorsement.
iwoca
iwoca is the first place we would look for a director who rents. Its published guarantee position is a personal guarantee from at least one company director, with no homeowner test and, in its own words, unsecured loans with no asset requirements. The Flexi-Loan is a limit of £1,000 to £1,000,000 held for one day to five years, with interest per 30 days charged only on the drawn balance, from 1.5% per 30 days (iwoca's FAQ gives a range of 1.5% to 5.7% a month). Repay early and the interest stops; there is no fee for doing so, which is the opposite of the Nucleus revenue-based loan's no-rebate rule.
Repayments are monthly rather than weekly. iwoca quotes a decision within 24 hours in almost all cases and money in the account within hours, lends to UK limited companies and LLPs, and held a Trustpilot score of 4.7 from over 11,000 reviews at our check. It lent £1.3 billion across 58,000 loans in 2025.
What it does not substitute is a five-year fixed schedule at a fixed rate. iwoca's rates are variable (it says it cannot change a customer's rate without consent), borrowing beyond 12 months typically adds a fee of 5% to 6%, and the representative example is 3.33% per 30 days, or 49% APR representative. It publishes no trading minimum but caps start-ups at a £10,000 limit and sizes limits at around one month's revenue or 20% of annual turnover. For money needed for weeks, it usually wins; held near the limit for years, it is dear.
Fleximize
Fleximize is the closest like-for-like to the new Nucleus Business Loan for a homeowner director: a monthly term loan of 12 to 60 months at 0.9% to 2.9% a month, unsecured to £500,000, with no set-up or arrangement fees when applying directly. Against Nucleus's minimum 3.5% arrangement fee and up to 5% broker fee, that alone is a material saving on a £100,000 loan. The Penalty-Free Promise recalculates interest on early settlement, and Fleximize says early repayers save an average of 44% of their total interest; Nucleus gives no rebate on the revenue-based loan.
The Flexiloan Lite opens at six months of trading (3 to 12 months, 1.9% to 3.9% a month), which overlaps the Credit Builder's six-month floor without the 2%-a-week price. Decisions come in as little as 24 hours with same-day funds on approval, loans are sized at up to four months of revenue, and top-ups and repayment holidays open after three successful repayments. Trustpilot held 4.8 from over 1,100 reviews at our check, and Fleximize lent £149 million in 2025.
What it does not substitute is the escape from the homeowner test. Fleximize's FAQ states it can only support non-homeowners trading for over 36 months, and then only up to £20,000, so a renting director gets a small number here too. A personal guarantee from at least one director or shareholder is required on every loan, and the representative example for loans under £25,000 is 41.1% APR (34.9% fixed a year on £15,000 over 18 months). Fleximize suits the homeowner who wants Nucleus's shape at a lower fee load; it does not rescue the renter.
Funding Circle
Funding Circle competes with the longer end of the Nucleus Business Loan, where Nucleus prices from 14.5% a year on terms of 25 to 60 months. Funding Circle's term loan runs £10,000 to £750,000 over 6 months to 6 years at fixed rates from 6.9% a year, plus a one-off completion fee that depends on risk rating and term. Its calculator's default example shows the fee at work: £100,000 over 24 months, £6,900 completion fee, £8,668 interest, £115,568 in total at £4,815 a month. Repayment is monthly, there is no early settlement fee, and overpayments are allowed.
The published guarantee position is that a personal guarantee will be required; no homeowner test is published. Funding Circle lends to limited companies and LLPs (it withdrew from sole traders and partnerships on 23 February 2026), runs a soft search at application, and quotes a 7-minute application, a decision in as little as an hour and funds typically within 48 hours. It states on its site that Funding Circle Ltd is authorised and regulated by the FCA under reference 722513, a line Nucleus's site does not carry. Trustpilot held 4.6 from around 17,000 reviews at our check.
What it does not substitute is speed of eligibility. The published minimum is one year of trading, the assessment reads up to eight months of bank statements and full accounts, and there is no equivalent of the Credit Builder for a director with a liquidation in the past. On the sub-24-month Flexible Loan the personal guarantee is set at twice the initial loan amount, and the completion fee is not refunded on early settlement. Our Funding Circle alternatives page covers what happens after a decline there.
365 Finance
Nucleus's revenue-based loan is often mistaken for a merchant cash advance because it is sized from revenue. It is not one: the repayment is a fixed weekly direct debit. 365 Finance writes the genuine article. It advances £10,000 to £500,000 against future card sales and collects at most 16% of daily card takings at source, a hard cap in its underwriting, so a quiet week costs less that week. It asks for 6 months of trading and £10,000 a month in card turnover, and its guarantee is a personal one without a published homeowner test.
The pricing is a fixed fee on the advance, so as with Nucleus the total is set on day one and early repayment saves nothing. Where 365 differs is in the human underwriting and named account managers: in our placements it is the lender that most often takes a deal an automated decline has rejected, a single satisfied CCJ being the typical case. Funds land reliably in 24 to 48 hours from a complete application, and top-ups can open at 40% to 60% repaid.
What it does not substitute is anything not paid on cards, or anything longer than the advance runs. A business taking most of its money by invoice has nothing for 365 to collect against, and the 16% cap sizes the offer as well as protecting cash flow. Our YouLend vs 365 Finance comparison sets the two card-split lenders side by side.
YouLend
YouLend covers the small, young end that Nucleus's revenue-based loan served: three months of card sales, around £1,500 a month, advances from about £3,000. The ceiling is £2,000,000, though most of the deals we place with it sit between £5,000 and £25,000. Repayment is a percentage of each day's card sales rather than a fixed weekly sum, the fee is fixed per deal, and the marketing quotes a decision in 24 hours and funding in 48, with clean open-banking cases funding the same day.
It underwrites on card turnover and director credit, takes personal guarantees from the directors as standard with no published homeowner requirement, and serves sole traders as well as companies. At its best partnership pricing it sits at the cheap end of the mainstream advance market. It publishes no rate card.
What it does not substitute is credit tolerance or a fixed end date. Recent defaults or active CCJs usually mean a decline, where Nucleus's Credit Builder is built for a director with a liquidation in the past. The daily sweep can run up to 30% of card sales on a stretched advance, twenty business days without card sales is an event of default, and a top-up generally opens at 60% repaid. An advance ends when the fee is collected, not on a date.
Capify
Capify is the other name that left the card split behind, and it now competes with Nucleus on the same ground: a fixed-repayment business loan for a business past its first year. The published range is £10,000 to £3,000,000, unsecured first with secured available, on terms from around 3 months and up to 2 years for secured deals. Eligibility on its own criteria is more than 12 months of trading and at least £10,000 a month in turnover, with no homeowner test among the published requirements. Rates are not published; the price arrives with the offer.
Its value is the second look. Capify has run a bad-credit loans page for years and its underwriting has a reputation for reading the whole business rather than a single old judgment, which makes it the nearest thing on this page to the Credit Builder's stated flexibility on director history, without the 2% a week. Published speed is conditional approval in about 60 seconds and funding possible in 24 hours; recent reviews describe money in around 48 hours. Trustpilot held 4.7 from 725 reviews at our check on 1 September 2026.
What it does not substitute is the young business or the long term. Twelve months of trading and £10,000 a month are both published floors, so the revenue-based loan's four-month customer is not a Capify case, and the terms are short against Nucleus's 60 months. Repeat borrowing is the house model (customers renew three times on average by Capify's own count), which is worth deciding on the numbers each time. Our Capify alternatives page covers the rest.
When Nucleus is still the right call
A homeowner director with 12 months of trading and a set of filed accounts who wants monthly repayments over up to 60 months is exactly who the Nucleus Business Loan is written for. Terms of 3 to 24 months at 1.99% or 2.49% a month, and 25 to 60 months from 14.5% a year, on £10,000 to £500,000 capped at 25% of annual turnover, with open banking doing the underwriting and a decision quoted as instant. Add the minimum 3.5% arrangement fee and any broker fee to the comparison, and if the total repayable still beats the Fleximize or Funding Circle figure for the same business, Nucleus has earned the deal.
Credit Builder is the other case, and a narrower one. It lends £3,000 to £25,000 over up to 12 months to businesses with six months of trading whose director owns a home, and the factsheet says it is more flexible on director history and previous liquidations and is meant to help rebuild credit for a refinance. At 2% a week plus a 5% Nucleus fee and a 9% broker fee it is expensive money with a purpose: a short, small loan repaid on time that puts a clean line on the file for the next application. Used that way, and only that way, it does something no lender on this page offers.
The revenue-based loan still exists on its own page for the four-month-old business with 10 transactions a month and no card terminal, from £3,000 to £300,000 with top-ups after four months; whether it is still being written is a question for Nucleus, since the homepage no longer mentions it. Nucleus has lent over £2.8 billion since 2011, so none of this is a start-up experiment. Our revenue-based finance guide explains how a revenue-sized loan differs from a revenue-repaid one.
Check the whole panel in one go
Tell us your numbers once and we say which of these lenders your business fits, and which would decline, before anything is submitted. We arrange; the lender decides.
Frequently asked questions
Sources and method
Facts on this page were checked against the sources below on 7 September 2026. Where a lender does not publish a figure we say so rather than estimate it.
- Nucleus Commercial Finance: homepage (three rebuilt products, rates, terms, broker fees, instant decision)
- Nucleus: Nucleus Business Loan factsheet, July 2026 (£10,000 to £500,000, 1.99% or 2.49% a month, from 14.5% a year, 3.5% arrangement fee, homeowner guarantee, open banking, 25% of turnover)
- Nucleus: Enable factsheet, August 2026 (£10,000 to £350,000, 3.89% a month, minimum 5% fee, offered when Business Loan criteria not met)
- Nucleus: Credit Builder factsheet, July 2026 (£3,000 to £25,000, 2% weekly, 6 months trading, homeowner, 5% fee, 9% broker fee, £380.66 example)
- Nucleus: Revenue-based loans (£3,000 to £300,000, 200% of monthly revenue, 3 to 12 months, weekly direct debit, eligibility, homeowner guarantee above £75,000, no rebate, top-ups, MCA stacking)
- Nucleus: Nucleus Business Loans consumer page (weekly direct debit wording)
- Nucleus: About us (founded 2011, £2.8 billion lent)
- Wayback Machine capture of the Nucleus homepage, 14 June 2026 (revenue-based loan still on the homepage)
- Companies House: Nucleus Commercial Finance Limited, 14143216
- Companies House: NCF Realisations (2024) Limited, 07829566 (formerly Nucleus Commercial Finance Limited)
- Companies House: Nucleus Commercial Holdings Limited, 09646728 (persons with significant control)
- Business Standard, 20 November 2025: Pulse secures Castlelake funding after Nucleus acquisition
- iwoca: Flexi-Loan (amounts, term, rates, representative example, longer-term fee, early repayment)
- iwoca: homepage and FAQ (personal guarantee from at least one director, unsecured with no asset requirements, 1.5% to 5.7% a month, £10,000 start-up cap, 24-hour decisions)
- iwoca: £250m funding structure, 27 July 2026 (£1.3 billion lent in 2025 across 58,000 loans)
- Fleximize: Flexiloan and Flexiloan Lite (amounts, terms, rates, fees, personal guarantee, top-ups)
- Fleximize: FAQs (homeowner rule, four months’ revenue, Penalty-Free Promise, 44% average saving, same-day funds)
- Fleximize: LendTech of the Year 2026 release (£149 million lent in 2025)
- Funding Circle: Small business loans (amounts, terms, rate floor, completion fee, personal guarantee, documents, trading minimum, speed, FRN 722513)
- Funding Circle: Loan calculator (£100,000 over 24 months worked example)
- Funding Circle: Non-limited loans (sole traders and partnerships withdrawn from 23 February 2026)
- Funding Circle: Shorter term business loans (personal guarantee at twice the loan)
- 365 Finance, YouLend and Capify: ranges, floors, sweep caps, speed and Trustpilot figures as published on our own reviews of each lender, read 7 September 2026
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Important information
CapExpand Ltd (FRN 1060885) is an Appointed Representative of White Rose Finance Group Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 630772). We are a credit broker, not a lender, and we do not provide financial, tax or legal advice. We work with a panel of lenders whose particulars are available on request. If a deal completes the lender pays us a commission, at no cost to you; different lenders pay different amounts under different models, and we will tell you the amount for your deal on request. All lending is subject to status, valuation where applicable and the lender's own checks.
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