The Bristol-based corporate finance team at South West law firm Ashfords has advised on a £5m US investment into a company harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) to help small and medium-sized businesses with their cashflow.
London-based Fluidly received the funding from New York-based venture capital firm Nyca Partners in a move that will allow it to expand its team of engineers and data scientists working to advance the product, and also to build sales and marketing capacity. 
Fluidly’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform is leading a new software category known as intelligent cashflow.
With cashflow management the single biggest financial pain-point that small and medium-sized enterprises face, the platform uses machine learning to predict and optimise the future cashflows for SMEs and provides the key to financial decision-making.
The funding round was led by Nyca with Octopus Ventures, Anthemis and tech angels Simon Murdoch and Charlie Songhurst among the other investors.
The Ashfords’ team advising Fluidly was led by Bristol-based corporate partner Rory Suggett. The deal is the latest in a series of tech sector transactions to be completed by Ashfords. 
Rory, pictured, said: “We are delighted to have helped Caroline close Fluidly’s Series A round. The business has made incredible progress in a very short space of time and it is great to see it get the capital it needs for the next phase of scaling.”
Fluidly founder and CEO Caroline Plumb said: “It was fantastic having support and advice from Ashfords during an incredibly exciting year for Fluidly. We have experienced a phenomenal period of growth and this latest investment will enable us to scale the business even further.
“Cashflow forecasting and management is the key to financial decision-making – we’re on a mission to help millions of business owners sleep better at night by giving them control, certainty and confidence in their financial future.”
Last week Bristol Business News reported that Ashfords had improved its ranking in a global league table of the most active in venture capital and private equity-backed transactions thanks to a spate of deals in the tech sector.
The firm, which employs around 500 people across its offices in Bristol, Exeter, London, Taunton, Tiverton and Plymouth, moved up from fourth to third in Europe in the latest quarterly report produced by international financial data group PitchBook.
Ashfords is the only independent UK law firm to appear in the top five most active law firms in Europe.
