Steven Hunter did not need the money. When 9fin raised US$170 million in March 2026, he said it was an opportunistic raise and that the company had not needed the capital. It is an unusual sentence from a founder at a unicorn, and it makes sense once you see how the company began.
Hunter studied law at the University of Bristol and graduated with first class honours. He did not become a lawyer. He went into leveraged finance at J.P. Morgan in London, then moved to Babson Capital Management, where he covered the European high yield bond and leveraged loan markets. His working day was spent chasing information about companies in debt.
Backers included Seedcamp, Redalpine and Spark Capital, and a small Series A of US$8 million funded the first move into the United States.
That is where the itch came from. He and Huss El-Sheikh, a technologist who had worked in engineering at a large bank, saw the same problem from different sides. The people who decided where billions in credit went relied on emails, PDFs and phone calls to learn what was happening to a borrower. The data existed, but it was scattered.
In 2016 the two started 9fin to fix that. The early product gathered and organised information on bonds, loans and distressed companies for the credit professionals who needed it faster than the incumbent services offered. Backers included Seedcamp, Redalpine and Spark Capital, and a small Series A of US$8 million funded the first move into the United States.
What almost nobody outside finance noticed was how much of the work could be automated. Hunter's team built tools that read filings and summarise them, and he has said AI will redefine the credit markets. Growth followed: the company reports several years in a row of 100% annual recurring revenue growth, and more than 300 banks, asset managers, law firms and advisers now use the platform.
In December 2024 Highland Europe led a US$50 million Series B, and its co-founder Fergal Mullen joined the board. Kerry McClelland was promoted to chief financial officer that month, a sign the company was being built for scale.
The Series C in March 2026 was led by HarbourVest, with CPP Investments and earlier investors joining, at a valuation reported as about US$1.3 billion. Total funding passed US$250 million. Coverage noted that 9fin is among the few European unicorns with Black leadership.
Hunter's route holds a quiet lesson. He was a lawyer by training and a banker by trade, and neither title became the company. The company came from sitting at a desk, noticing how clumsy the work was, and finding the one person who could help him build the fix. When the money finally arrived, it was a choice and not a rescue.