9fin
Unicorn Β· $1.3BFounded 2016 Β· 607 employees on LinkedIn Β· 8 known investors
9fin is an AI-native intelligence platform that provides data extraction, analytics, and workflows for credit and debt capital markets teams. The platform unifies hard-to-access financial data, expert insights, and AI capabilities to help investment banks, asset managers, hedge funds, and other financial institutions make faster, better-informed decisions on loans, bonds, and restructurings.
Also known as 9fin.com
Founders & leadership
9fin was founded in 2016 by Steven, Huss, Huss E., Huss EL-Sheikh, and Steven Hunter.
Investors Β· 8
Also in the syndicate Β· 1
Funding
SEC filings, press & company announcements$170M disclosed across 1 of 3 rounds Β· 2022β2026
- $170MSeries CMar 2026 Β· 3 sources
HarbourVest (lead), CPP Investments, Highland Europe, Redalpine, Seedcamp, Spark Capital
Source β
Source: company announcements and press reports β follow each round's link for the claim.
Valuation Β· disclosed
Disclosed eventsSource: SEC prospectus filings, and round valuations the company or its investors disclosed β follow each entry's link for the claim.
Company profile
researched Aug 20269fin operates an AI-native intelligence platform for credit and debt capital markets. It combines proprietary structured data (bond and loan terms, pricing, trading history, financials, covenants, capital structures, spanning 20+ years of deal history), AI research tools, and real-time news and analysis produced by journalists, credit analysts and legal specialists, delivered in a single workflow [0][2][3].
Coverage spans leveraged finance, distressed debt and restructuring, CLOs, private credit, asset-based finance (ABF) and investment grade, across North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific [0][2]. AI features include document and filing summarization, covenant analysis, earnings summaries, comparables and tear sheets, with outputs cited and traceable to source documents; the company states guardrails and human oversight are applied to validate outputs [0][2][3]. Products announced in 2026 include a BDC Watchlist tracking fair value erosion across 157 business development companies, which flagged 468 at-risk private credit loans worth $5.7bn in Q1 2026 [5][6][7].
Founding story
Co-founders Steven Hunter and Hussam (Huss) El-Sheikh worked earlier in their careers at large investment banks β Hunter as a J.P. Morgan banker and El-Sheikh as a Deutsche Bank engineer β where they observed billion-dollar credit deals being executed with spreadsheets, PDFs and fax machines. They left their jobs in 2016 to build 9fin, and when applying to Google's AI residency that year described the idea as "AI-powered financial data." Their thesis was that credit's bottleneck was the inability to process available information at scale, leading them to build technology to automatically read complex documents and extract terms such as covenants and pricing [2][7].
Business model
Subscription-style access to a B2B platform for financial institutions, sold via demos and free trials, combining data and analytics, AI tools, and news and analysis. The company reports ARR as its headline growth metric and cites industry-leading retention [3][4][7].
Recurring revenue from institutional platform subscriptions; the company reports multiple consecutive years of 100% ARR growth [7].
Traction
The company reports 350+ leading firms globally as clients (300+ per the March 2026 press release), coverage of 80% of trading desks, top 10 investment banks, and clients with $17trn+ in combined AUM, plus 550+ employees. It cites multiple consecutive years of 100% ARR growth, industry-leading retention, and faster growth in the United States. CPP Investments was a client before investing in the Series C [0][2][7].
Latest developments
Following the March 2026 Series C, 9fin appointed Amit Lalwani as its first CRO (June 2026), Valeria Morozovsky as senior advisor for emerging markets (July 2026), and Huw Richards as Head of Customer Partnerships to embed its credit data into other firms' AI systems (July 2026). It launched a BDC Watchlist in July 2026, completed a first employee secondary share sale in July 2026 at the Series C valuation, and launched 24/5 global data coverage with hubs in Malaysia and Chile in August 2026 [5][6][7].
βΈFull profile β market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
9fin positions itself as an AI-native alternative to legacy debt market information providers, aiming to become the leading global provider of AI, data and analytics for debt capital markets within the decade. The company states debt capital markets represent $145trn, the world's largest asset class [0][2][7].
Stated differentiators include AI built specifically on proprietary debt market data with source-traceable outputs, unified coverage of public, private and distressed credit, early deal intelligence and predictive analytics, and combining automated extraction with human expert validation [0][2][3].
Technology
AI trained on proprietary debt market data accumulated over a decade, used for automated extraction of terms such as covenants and pricing from complex documents and for mapping relationships between them. Outputs are cited and traceable to source, with guardrails and human validation by reporters, credit analysts and legal specialists [0][2][3].
Go-to-market
Direct enterprise sales to credit teams, with personalized 30-minute product walkthroughs and free trials as the entry point, supported by published news, analysis and client case studies (e.g. IK Partners). Segment-specific propositions are offered for banks, buyside, advisors and law firms. In June 2026 the company appointed its first Chief Revenue Officer to lead a unified global revenue strategy [3][4][5][7].
Investment banks, asset managers, hedge funds, law firms, advisory firms and private credit funds; within banks, roles including origination, sales and trading, restructuring and special situations, and securitization [0][2][7].
Geography
Headquartered in London, with offices in New York, Hong Kong and Belfast and teams across Latin America and Asia. Coverage spans North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. In August 2026 the company added data hubs in Malaysia and Chile to support 24/5 global data coverage alongside Belfast [2][5][6][7].
History
Founded in 2016, 9fin says it has spent roughly nine years deploying AI for debt markets. It announced a $23m Series A+ in December 2022, and in March 2026 raised a $170m Series C at a $1.3bn valuation led by HarbourVest, bringing total funding raised to more than $250m. In 2026 the company hired its first Chief Revenue Officer (Amit Lalwani, June 2026), appointed Valeria Morozovsky as senior advisor for emerging markets expansion (July 2026), and hired former JPMorgan executive Huw Richards as Head of Customer Partnerships (July 2026). It ran its first employee secondary share sale in July 2026 at the Series C valuation, and launched 24/5 global data coverage with new hubs in Malaysia and Chile in August 2026 [2][5][6][7].
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources β announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed β not independently audited.
Timeline Β· 9
launches, deals, and filingsNew data hubs in Malaysia and Chile join Belfast to serve clients across three continents.
Following the $170m Series C, 9fin ran its first employee secondary sale, allowing employees to realise part of their equity at the same valuation.
Watchlist tracks fair value erosion across 157 BDCs and flagged 468 at-risk private credit loans worth $5.7bn in Q1 2026.
Hired to embed 9fin's credit data into the AI systems of major firms.
Appointment to drive expansion across Latin America, CEEMEA and Asia-Pacific.
9fin hired Amit Lalwani as its first CRO to lead a unified global revenue strategy following the $170m Series C.
Series C led by HarbourVest with participation from CPP Investments and earlier investors Redalpine, Highland Europe, Spark Capital and Seedcamp; proceeds to fund AI development, dataset expansion and US growth.
$170M source β
9fin launched comprehensive coverage of Latin American debt markets.
$23M source β
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
Companies House Β· registry record
View on Companies House β- Registered name
- 9FIN LIMITED
- Company number
- 10451957
- Status
- Active
- Company type
- Private limited company
- Incorporated
- 28 Oct 2016
- Registered office
- 8th Floor 100 Bishopsgate, London, EC2N 4AG
- Nature of business (SIC)
- 63990 β Other information service activities n.e.c.
- Accounts
- last made up to 31 Dec 2025 Β· next due 30 Sept 2027
- Confirmation statement
- last made up to 10 Oct 2025 Β· next due 24 Oct 2026
Current officers Β· 5
- Ldc Nominee Secretary Limited β corporate secretary, appointed 1 Jul 2025
- Hussam El-Sheikh β director, appointed 4 Nov 2016
- Alexander Joseph Finkelstein β director, appointed 17 Nov 2022
- Steven Hunter β director, appointed 28 Oct 2016
- Fergal Joseph Mullen β director, appointed 12 Dec 2024
Source: Companies House public register Β· retrieved 30 Aug 2026. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
In the news
βΈResearch sources Β· 8
primary sources listed
- 9fin9fin.com Β· web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does 9fin do?
- 9fin is an AI-native data, analytics and news platform for global debt capital markets, headquartered in London.
- Who founded 9fin?
- 9fin was founded by Steven, Huss, Huss E., Huss EL-Sheikh, Steven Hunter in 2016.
- Who are 9fin's investors?
- 9fin's investors include 500 Global, Fly Ventures, Highland Europe, Liquidity Capital, Seedcamp, redalpine, Spark Capital.
- How much funding has 9fin raised?
- 9fin has disclosed $170M raised across 1 of its 3 known rounds.