ClearScore Group, the London-based credit marketplace best known for free credit score checks, acquired Acre Platforms, a London technology company that sells software to mortgage and protection brokers. The deal was reported on January 23, 2026.
Terms were not disclosed. Acre has 47 employees, who are joining ClearScore's teams in London, Manchester and Edinburgh. Justus Brown, Acre's founder and chief executive, made the announcement alongside ClearScore.
Acre will keep selling its technology to mortgage and protection firms under ClearScore's ownership. ClearScore said Acre would also become the engine of its own mortgage business.
What Acre built
Acre's main product is a CRM and case management platform that mortgage and protection brokers use to run client files, from collecting data to recommending and applying for products. The company spun out of Founders Factory's venture studio, and its pitch has been that a client's data and identity should be entered and checked once, then reused across the whole home-buying process.
In April 2023, Acre said its platform had grown tenfold in 2022 to 1,300 users, representing more than £10 billion (about $12.4 billion) in annual mortgage volume. By then it had signed networks including Cornerstone Finance Group and Beneficial Network and integrated with five lenders, among them Santander and TSB.
The company also signed its first protection-only firm, Intrinsic House. Ant Barker, head of venture investments and partnerships at Aviva, said at the time of the 2023 round that Acre represented the future of a tech-led mortgage market, and that Aviva Ventures would keep backing Brown and his team.
“The acquisition allows us to accelerate our mortgage strategy, with Acre technology powering our home lending business and helping us deliver compelling new experiences for our users.”
Why ClearScore is buying
ClearScore matches users with credit cards, loans and car finance using credit reports, open banking and affordability data. It said it has 16 million users in the UK and more than 25 million worldwide. In early 2025 it bought Aro Finance, a lending marketplace and second-charge mortgage broker, to move into secured loans.
With Acre, ClearScore plans to route mortgage demand from its users to the brokers on Acre's platform, and to use Acre's property, mortgage and affordability data in the insights it shows homeowners and buyers. It said it wants Acre to become an integral layer of the mortgage market, in the way its open banking service D-One works for lenders in consumer credit. Over time it plans to take the mortgage platform to its businesses in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
Justin Basini, ClearScore's co-founder and chief executive, said Acre's CRM for intermediaries, combined with ClearScore's brand, reach and data, would give the group technology platforms and APIs spanning unsecured credit, car finance and mortgages. He said the deal built on growth in the group's home lending business in 2025.
The founder and the funding
Acre raised £5 million (about $6.4 million) in 2019 in a round led by insurer Aviva and Sesame Bankhall Group. In April 2023 it raised a further £6.5 million (about $8.1 million) from McPike Global Family Office, with Aviva and Founders Factory returning, according to Mortgage Solutions. Acre said at the time it would use the money to build partnerships with lenders and insurers.
Brown said Acre's mission had always been to simplify the mortgage process so that consumers could move into their homes sooner, and that joining ClearScore would help it pursue its goal of becoming the leading technology platform for the mortgage industry.
What happens to brokers
ClearScore did not announce changes to Acre's pricing or product for existing broker clients. The main change for them is a potential new source of leads: mortgage customers coming from ClearScore's consumer app, routed through Acre's platform.
Some reports described the deal as completed, while others called it an announcement; none gave a separate completion date.
Brown said the deal opened growth opportunities tied to ClearScore's brand, technology platform and existing lender integrations.
