LendingCrowd toasts Scottish Enterprise anniversary
LendingCrowd, the only peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform headquartered in Scotland, has completed 33 loan deals ”“ worth some £3 million ”“ to companies based north of the Border since forming its groundbreaking partnership with Scottish Enterprise a year ago.
Loans have been secured by a range of fast-growing companies, including restaurant chain Tony Macaroni, property lettings agency Umega Lettings and Summerhall Distillery, the producer of award-winning spirits brand Pickering’s Gin.
The Scottish Enterprise tie-up, announced in October last year, will see the economic development agency provide LendingCrowd with £2.75m to lend to Scottish SMEs across its platform.
Stuart Lunn, co-founder and CEO of Edinburgh-based LendingCrowd, is now targeting total lending of £15m to Scottish SMEs in 2018, more than a third of forecast overall lending of £40m across the UK next year, and said growth in the platform’s investor funds has been driven by the launch in February of its Innovative Finance ISA product.
He said: “The flexibility of our funding packages combined with our ability to offer a highly personalised service and much quicker turnarounds on loan decisions than are available on the high street are starting to make an impression in the Scottish market.
“LendingCrowd has seen significant growth in 2017 and is anticipating doing £18m of deals this year, versus £4.5m in 2016. Much of the growth in investor funds on the platform results from LendingCrowd launching its ISA in February this year.”
LendingCrowd, which was established in October 2014, is fully authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. To help drive growth and scale the business, former RBS and Clydesdale Bank director Adrian Innes joined as Head of Origination in September and now leads business development activity.
ShareIn Targets Property Market
ShareIn , the fast growing Edinburgh-based software provider, has announced a surge of enquiries from property specialists seeking to raise capital online.
Formed in 2011 by founders Jude Cook and Andrew Pickett, ShareIn builds online investment platforms for companies using financially compliant software services. It provides the technology, expertise and regulation to link a network of investors to fund projects.
Throughout 2017, ShareIn has noted an increase in the number of new initiatives coming from property developers and investment managers, fuelled by a need to streamline existing paper driven methods and a desire to open up investments to a wider audience.
Jude Cook, CEO and Co-founder of ShareIn said:
“Property developers and investment managers have a pipeline of projects and a need to raise capital quickly and simply from established and new investors. In relying on traditional capital raising routes they fear being left behind by new technology. At the same time UK investors are looking for new investment opportunities and are comfortable investing online.
ShareIn gets them together and eliminates the challenge, cost and time associated with setting up and maintaining their own investment platform. We connect organisations with their network swiftly to raise target capital and get deals done.
Our platform handles each step in the investment process from listing opportunities to paying returns and ensures compliance with the UK regulator, The Financial Conduct Authority. Having their own platform enables property specialists to focus on the important matter of sourcing attractive deals and building their network”.
To date, ShareIn has supported a wide range of capital raising initiatives from medical, sports, utilities and energy sectors. It is the software platform of choice for many new capital raising initiatives in the UK, many of which have become Appointed Representatives of ShareIn using their regulatory umbrella services. This includes Simple Equity, which raised £1.6 million pounds in 17 minutes on their London based property crowdfunding platform in June 2017.
ShareIn is one of the founding members of the UK Crowdfunding Association and is headquartered in Edinburgh at Codebase, the UK’s largest technology incubator. It has experienced significant growth since formation now employing 12 specialists with plans to recruit further