Funding Circle raises £82 million in equity funding

Funding Circle has secured £82 million in equity funding, enabling the peer-to-peer lending platform to provide financial support to small businesses and create thousands of jobs.

The £82 million round, which was led by venture capital firm Accel and received contributions from Funding Circle’s existing investors Union Square Ventures, Baillie Gifford and Ribbit Capital, comes after the lending platform secured £40 million investment from the Government’s British Business Bank earlier this month.

Growth

During the last quarter of 2016, Funding Circle saw a growth of 90 per cent year on year, and the platform’s total lending to small businesses over the past year reached £1.1 billion.

The company, which was founded in 2010 and lends £100 million to small businesses every month, will use the latest round of funding to make further developments to its technology platform to provide investors and borrowers worldwide with the best customer experience.

Commenting on the lending platform, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond stated that it has become a real success story for British fintech. He described the latest round of funding as a vote of confidence in a UK company that plays an important part in the UK’s economy by helping businesses to grow and create jobs.

Journey

Funding Circle CEO and Co-Founder Samir Desai commented: “[This] news is the next step on our journey to create a category-defining company that helps thousands of small businesses access finance and create jobs.”

He added that a further 50,000 new jobs will be created from lending through the Funding Circle platform over the next 12 months, which will support economic growth in the UK, US and continental Europe.