Melbourne lender lets businesses borrow without staking homes

Two tranches, one problem to solve

Melbourne fintech Archa announced on 13 October 2026 that it had raised $11 million in equity and secured a separate A$50 million debt facility designed to extend business credit without requiring directors to sign personal guarantees.^[1] The debt facility provides funding for the credit lines Archa extends to its business customers, while the equity goes directly into product development, including the AI tools that audit purchases against company spending policy.^[1]

The personal guarantee problem for SMEs

Traditional bank-issued corporate cards routinely require directors to back business debt with personal assets, a condition that forces founders and executives to put their homes and savings at risk in exchange for working capital. Archa's pitch is that the debt facility removes that condition, making credit available to high-growth small and medium businesses that can demonstrate revenue without asking individuals to shoulder the liability.

Archa describes itself as a Melbourne-based fintech building corporate cards and spend management software, including an AI Expense Agent, which its website lists as coming soon, designed to audit every transaction against company policy.^[3] The equity raised in this round will fund that AI tooling, which the company says checks every purchase against a business's spending rules in real time.^[1]

Who backed the round

Investors include family offices and venture capital firms, alongside executives and founders from Zip, The Iconic, BetaShares, Netspace and US-based The Fintech Fund.^[1] Other backers include former Macquarie executives, fitness entrepreneur Emily Skye and Wallabies player Quade Cooper.^[2]

Growth figures and customer base

Company-reported annual recurring revenue grew 184 per cent over the 12 months to October 2026, with more than $200 million in annualised spend across its customer base.^[1] Bushletter could not independently verify those figures, which come from the company's own release. The customer base includes the Sydney Roosters NRL club as one of Archa's customers.^[1]

From neobank to corporate credit

Archa was founded by Oliver Kidd, a former corporate M&A lawyer, who launched the business as a consumer neobank called Archa Money before pivoting entirely to corporate credit in 2021.^[1] The pivot, following Archa's move away from the consumer neobank model, placed Archa in a market where spend management software and programmable corporate cards have attracted growing interest from Australian businesses seeking an alternative to legacy bank products.

Archa has also announced a partnership with expense management platform ProSpend, with the two products positioned as a connected layer covering card issuance, controls, visibility and finance workflows around every transaction.^[4]