Editorial Standards

Editorial independence

Editorial decisions at Undiluted are made independently of our commercial relationships.

Companies do not need to be customers, partners or advertisers to be covered, and commercial relationships do not guarantee editorial coverage or influence how we report a story.

Where a commercial relationship is sufficiently relevant that a reasonable reader would want to know about it, we will disclose it.

Sponsored, partner or contributed content will be clearly distinguished from independent editorial coverage.

Sourcing and verification

We aim to report from primary sources wherever possible.

Depending on the story, these may include:

• company and lender announcements;
• regulatory filings;
• company registries and corporate filings;
• security and charge registrations;
• financial statements;
• fund documentation;
• interviews with borrowers, lenders, advisers and other market participants; and
• other publicly available records.

We may also use reporting from reputable publications, databases and other secondary sources to provide context or identify information requiring further investigation.

Where information originates from another publication, we aim to attribute it appropriately and, wherever practical, verify material facts independently.

Venture debt and growth credit transactions are often private, and complete financing terms are rarely disclosed. We therefore distinguish between information that has been publicly confirmed and conclusions that can reasonably be inferred from available information.

Where an interpretation is based on filings or other circumstantial evidence rather than explicit confirmation, we aim to make that distinction clear.

Deal and market reporting

Undiluted's news coverage focuses primarily on venture debt, growth credit and other debt financing raised by growth companies. This includes new facilities, refinancings, extensions and upsizes, lender and fund activity, and other developments that help readers understand how the market is evolving.

Our news coverage is intended to go beyond reproducing company announcements. Where information is available, we may investigate previous financing, existing lenders, security arrangements, company financials, transaction structure and other context that helps readers understand a deal.

Undiluted is not intended to provide comprehensive coverage of corporate insolvencies, restructurings, litigation or distressed situations. These developments may be relevant to our research and intelligence, and we may report on them where they have broader significance for the venture debt or growth credit market.

Not every transaction will have the same level of publicly available information. The absence of information should not be interpreted as evidence that a particular term, lender or structure does not exist.

Figures may also differ between sources because of currency conversion, facility structures, commitments versus amounts drawn, or differences in how financing rounds are described.

What we cover

Undiluted primarily determines coverage by the borrower rather than the label attached to a financing. Our core focus remains venture debt and growth credit, but growth companies increasingly use a much wider range of debt structures to finance their development.

Where a growth-stage, innovation-led company raises debt, we may therefore cover the transaction regardless of whether it is structured as venture debt, growth credit, asset-backed lending, equipment finance, acquisition finance or another form of credit. Lenders and borrowers often describe similar financings in different ways, so our market reporting looks across those labels and analyses deals by size, sector, region and lender type instead.

By growth-stage, innovation-led companies we mean businesses that are typically venture-backed or growth-equity-backed, or otherwise scaling rapidly. Listed or more established companies may be included where they remain in a clear growth phase.

How we classify transactions

Lenders, borrowers and advisers use terms such as venture debt, growth credit and growth capital in different ways, and often interchangeably. To keep our reporting and data consistent, Undiluted applies its own classification to every transaction we cover rather than simply adopting the terminology used in an announcement.

We classify a transaction primarily by what the lender is underwriting and what is expected to support repayment.

• Venture debt is debt provided to companies that still rely materially on equity funding and runway to finance their growth and operations. The lender is typically underwriting the company's existing liquidity, equity sponsorship and ability to reach future milestones rather than its current cash generation. VC backing, company stage, lender type and the presence of warrants are useful indicators, but do not determine the classification on their own.
• Growth credit is debt provided to established growth companies where the lender primarily underwrites revenue, recurring revenue, operating performance and the business's capacity to service or repay debt, rather than its continued access to equity funding. Borrowers may still be loss-making, provided the lender has a credible basis for repayment from the underlying business.
• Other growth financing covers growth debt where repayment is linked to the company's revenues or to specific growth spending rather than its general creditworthiness, such as revenue-based financing, royalty structures and financing of customer-acquisition spend.
• Asset-backed financing covers facilities where repayment is primarily linked to specific assets, receivables or a loan book. Examples include warehouse and forward-flow facilities for fintech lenders (including venture-backed consumer lenders), vehicle-fleet financing, receivables-backed facilities, asset-based lending and equipment finance.
• AI compute covers debt raised by growth companies building GPU, compute or data-centre businesses, and by frontier AI companies.
• Acquisition finance covers debt raised by a growth company specifically to acquire another business. Where acquisition funding forms part of a broader growth facility, we classify the facility as venture debt or growth credit.

Our classification may therefore differ from the terminology used by a lender, borrower or adviser. Applying a consistent methodology allows readers to compare transactions across lenders and markets and means our market data reflects the underlying financing rather than how it was marketed.

Classification sometimes relies on incomplete information. Where the available evidence does not allow us to determine the structure with confidence, we may make a reasonable inference based on factors such as the borrower's financial profile, funding history, facility structure and stated use of proceeds. Where a VC-backed company has not disclosed evidence that its business can support repayment, we will generally classify its borrowing as venture debt. Where relevant, we aim to make those assumptions clear. If new information emerges that changes our view, we will update the classification.

Our headline venture debt and growth credit figures include only deals classified as venture debt or growth credit. Other growth debt is tracked and reported separately. Exceptionally large transactions, currently those above US$1bn, may be reported as news and listed as notable deals, but are excluded from all totals so that they do not distort underlying trends. Our public tracker shows venture debt and growth credit as its headline, with other growth debt in a single separate section; more detailed breakdowns appear in our reports.

What falls outside our classification

Our test is the borrower, not the asset. We therefore generally do not cover debt raised by infrastructure sponsors or project vehicles, such as a special-purpose company financing a data centre, where the asset merely supports AI or technology activity rather than being raised by a growth company itself.

Traditional businesses without a technology-led model, such as consumer goods, food and drink, business services, industrials and retail, are out of scope even when venture- or growth-backed, unless technology is central to how they compete.

We also generally exclude real estate lending and property finance, consumer credit provided by lenders that are not themselves growth companies, leveraged buyout and other sponsor acquisition finance for mature businesses, and conventional corporate debt raised by mature, cash-generative companies. These are substantial markets in their own right, but they involve different lenders, structures and credit considerations. Including them would make it harder to identify trends in venture debt, growth credit and the wider debt market for growth companies.

Anonymous and confidential sources

We prefer information to be attributable wherever possible.

There may, however, be circumstances in which a source has legitimate reasons not to be named. We may use information from confidential sources where we believe the source is credible and the information is relevant to our reporting.

We will not knowingly identify a confidential source without their permission.

Information shared with Undiluted on background or off the record should be clearly identified as such when it is provided.

Corrections and updates

Accuracy matters to us.

If we become aware of a material factual error, we will correct it as promptly as reasonably possible.

Articles may also be updated as additional information becomes available. Where a change materially alters or clarifies the original reporting, we may include an update or correction note explaining what changed.

Minor changes, including spelling, grammar, formatting or other edits that do not affect the substance of an article, may be made without a published correction notice.

If you believe something we have published is inaccurate, incomplete or misleading, we welcome corrections and supporting evidence.

Opinion, analysis and contributed content

Undiluted publishes a mixture of reporting, analysis, guides and commentary.

Where content represents opinion or commentary rather than straightforward reporting, we aim to make that clear from its presentation and context.

We may also publish contributed articles from industry participants. Contributed content represents the author's perspective and does not necessarily reflect the views of Undiluted.

We reserve the right to edit contributed content for clarity, accuracy, relevance and style.

We will not publish promotional material presented as independent editorial analysis.

Commercial partnerships and sponsored content

Undiluted may generate revenue through sponsorship, advertising, partnerships, events, research, enhanced company profiles and other commercial products.

Commercial support helps fund our journalism and research, but it does not give partners editorial control over independent coverage.

Paid-for content or placements will be clearly identified where their commercial nature may not otherwise be obvious.

Sponsors of research, events, podcasts or other editorial products may be acknowledged prominently, but sponsorship does not entitle a company to favourable coverage.

Conflicts of interest

Undiluted covers a specialised market in which editorial, commercial and professional relationships can overlap.

We aim to identify and disclose material conflicts of interest where they could reasonably affect how a reader interprets our work.

We do not consider every interaction with a company, source or market participant to constitute a conflict. Relevant disclosures will be made where the relationship is significant to the subject being covered.

Use of artificial intelligence and technology

Undiluted uses software and artificial intelligence as part of its editorial and research workflow.

This may include assisting with tasks such as:

• identifying and organising information;
• searching and analysing documents;
• extracting structured data;
• transcription;
• research support;
• summarisation;
• drafting and editing; and
• formatting content for publication.

Artificial intelligence is a tool, not an authoritative source.

Published editorial content is reviewed by a human editor, and we aim to verify material factual claims against reliable sources wherever practicable.

We do not knowingly publish fabricated quotations, sources or facts generated by artificial intelligence.

Authors and accountability

Editorial content published by Undiluted is attributed to the person responsible for reviewing and approving it for publication.

Author pages provide additional information about the people behind our reporting and research.

The named author is accountable for the published article, regardless of the tools used during the research or production process.

Embargoes and advance information

We may receive information under embargo ahead of a public announcement.

Where we agree to an embargo, we will respect the agreed publication time unless the information becomes legitimately public through another source beforehand.

Accepting embargoed information does not guarantee coverage.

Coverage decisions

Undiluted determines independently what it covers.

We do not charge companies to be included in our news coverage, and there is no guarantee that a submitted announcement, transaction or other development will be reported.

Our editorial focus is venture debt, growth credit and related forms of debt financing for growth companies, with an emphasis on transactions and developments that help readers understand financing activity across the market. Venture debt and growth credit remain the basis of our headline market data.

We do not seek to provide comprehensive coverage of every corporate development involving a borrower or lender we have previously reported on. We may choose not to cover developments that fall outside our editorial focus, where there is insufficient information to provide useful reporting, or where the story is more appropriately covered by publications specialising in other areas.

Contacting us

We welcome corrections, clarifications, story tips, supporting documents and feedback on our reporting.

If you believe an article contains a factual error or requires clarification, please contact us with details of the relevant article and, where possible, supporting evidence.

We review legitimate concerns carefully and update our reporting where appropriate.