Durham-based start-up honcho, the UK’s first reverse auction marketplace for financial services, has received a £50,000 debenture facility from the Barclays Northern Powerhouse Fund.
Honcho is due to launch in late 2018 and allows car insurers to bid against each other for consumers’ business. Eventually the company plans to expand into other personal finance products.
The company was founded by CEO Gavin Sewell, who lives in Northumberland, and commercial director Frank Speight, who lives in North Yorkshire.
Sewell said: “We’re delighted to benefit from the Barclays Northern Powerhouse Growth Fund. Barclays have always been very supportive of honcho and we’re thrilled that they’re now offering us additional support through their initiative to help SMEs in the North East.”
Michael Watson, Business Manager at Barclays, added: “We are delighted to have the financial disruptor, honcho, as a business that is receiving support from the Barclays Northern Powerhouse Fund.
“As a team we were incredibly impressed with honcho’s business plan. For a company, the size of honcho we were overwhelmed with not only the exceptional progress that the Durham-based company had already made in such a short amount of time and it was for this reason that we felt, the financial disruptor fit our criteria of a start-up business with high growth potential.”
