Growth Associate - M&A Platform

You’re joining manda, iwoca’s M&A platform, at a pivotal moment. After early success working with existing iwoca customers, we’re now turning to the open market to help more business owners exit.

That’s why we’re looking for a Growth Associate to join the team. This is a 6-month fixed-term role for someone smart, hungry and entrepreneurial. With the right traction the role will convert into a permanent role at the forefront of manda’s growth efforts.

The company

Selling a small business is hard. Only one in five UK SME owners has a formal exit plan, yet half are counting on their business to fund their retirement. Below £10m in enterprise value, most M&A advisers can't make the economics work, so a generation of owner-managers is getting ready to step back with no realistic route to a sale.

manda exists to fix that. We match owners with serious buyers, from search funds to private equity, and handle the whole process in one place, including financial due diligence and acquisition finance. Our first sale is done, and we're now opening manda up beyond iwoca's own customers.

manda is part of iwoca, one of Europe's leading fintech lenders, which has provided more than £4 billion in funding to over 150,000 businesses since 2012. That gives us what a traditional adviser doesn't have: a deep footprint in the SME economy, a lender's data and infrastructure, and deals run on clean, automated processes rather than spreadsheets.

The team

You'll report to manda's Venture Lead and work day to day with our Transaction Managers, the dealmakers who run each sale, and our Partnerships Manager, who builds our referral network with accountants, solicitors and wealth managers. You'll also work with iwoca's marketing & sales team and have access to their tools and know-how.

The role

Your mission is to grow the number of businesses manda takes to market, by finding owners who are serious about selling and bringing them into a first meeting with one of our Transaction Managers.

With an ethos of smarter, not louder, you’ll build on iwoca’s existing models to work out which owners are getting ready to sell and which businesses will attract a buyer, then reach them personally by email, LinkedIn and phone. We'd rather approach the right few hundred owners well than the wrong ten thousand badly.

Decide who we contact. Own the target lists and the logic behind them, and keep sharpening them on what actually predicts a seller and a strong business.

Convert interest. Write and send the outreach yourself, follow up with owners who respond, and book them in with a Transaction Manager.

Find what works. Run several experiments at once, back what produces meetings and drop what doesn't. Letters, events and ideas of your own can all earn a place.

Make manda credible. Owners look us up before they reply. Help make sure what they find, from our website to LinkedIn, gives them a reason to get in touch.

Who you are

You don't need to be a marketer or have years of experience. You need to be smart, resourceful and quick to learn from what isn't working, and to want ownership of something real.

You're entrepreneurial. You've started, sold or built something, even if it was small, and you don't wait for a plan before getting going.

You write well. Your messages are short, clear and human, the kind a busy owner actually answers, and you're just as at ease on the phone with someone who has spent thirty years building their business.

You follow through. A reply that never becomes a meeting is a lead lost.

You're honest about results. You'd rather report a bad week than dress it up.

You're AI-savvy. You use AI to research, personalise and write at a scale one person couldn't otherwise reach, and you automate whatever you find yourself doing twice.

The requirements

Essential:

Some experience in outreach, sales or growth, whether in an SDR or BDR role, marketing, a startup or a project of your own. Evidence of initiative matters more than a polished CV.

Numerate and analytical. Working out who to contact is as much of this job as contacting them.

Comfortable with rejection. Most owners won't reply, and plenty who do won't be ready yet.

A genuine interest in SMEs, M&A or how businesses change hands.

Based in London and available full-time.

Bonus:

Hands-on with outbound tools such as HubSpot or LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

You've worked to a meetings or pipeline target, and hit it.

Experience building a targeting or lead-scoring model.

The salary & contract

This is initially a 6-month fixed-term contract, with a salary of £30,000–£40,000 per annum (pro rata), depending on experience.

While we're starting with a fixed-term contract, our intention is for this to develop into a permanent position. At the end of the six months, we'll review how things have gone, with the opportunity to make the role permanent, expand its responsibilities and revisit the salary to reflect the longer-term scope.

Please include your salary expectations with your application.

The culture

At iwoca, we prioritise a culture of learning, growth, and support, and invest in the development of our team members. We value thought and skill diversity, and encourage people to explore new areas of interest, adopt better tools – including AI – and apply sound judgement so our products and decisions improve over time.

The offices

We put a lot of effort into making iwoca a great place to work:

Offices in London, Leeds, Berlin, and Frankfurt with plenty of drinks and snacks.

Events and community-led groups, including running groups, padel, and monthly ping-pong and pool competitions.

The benefits

Flexible working hours.

Medical insurance from Vitality, including discounted gym membership.

A choice between a dedicated dental plan or a health cash plan that reimburses everyday medical expenses.

A private GP service (separate from Vitality) for you, your partner, and your dependents.

25 days’ holiday per year, an extra day off for your birthday, the option to buy or sell an additional five days of annual leave, and unlimited unpaid leave.

A one-month, fully paid sabbatical after four years.

Instant access to external counselling and therapy sessions for team members that need emotional or mental health support.

3% Pension contributions on total earnings.

An employee equity incentive scheme.

Generous parental leave and a nursery tax benefit scheme to help you save money.

Electric car scheme and cycle to work scheme.

Two company retreats a year: we’ve been to France, Italy, Spain, and further afield.

And to make sure we all keep learning, we offer:

A learning and development budget for everyone.

Company-wide talks with internal and external speakers.

Access to learning platforms like Treehouse.

Useful links:

iwoca benefits & policies

Interview welcome pack