Berlin-based lending marketplace Smava has raised $34m in a Series C round of funding.
The investment was led by Runa Capital with mojo.capital, Verdane Capital and Earlybird Venture Capital also participating.
The company initially launched as a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform in 2007 before pivoting to a marketplace model connecting private investors and banks to borrowers.
Smava claims to have facilitated more than $1.75bn in transactions and will use the new capital to further develop its fully-automated instalment-loans offering.
The round brings the firm’s total funding to more than $60m with it previously taking on $16m in a Series B round last year.
The new funding comes at a somewhat turbulent time in the online lending market as peer-to-peer offerings such as Lending Club experiencing drops in loans volumes following scandals.
Regulatory bodies in the UK and China are both also investigating P2P businesses.
By moving away from the P2P Smava is staying out of these kinds of regulatory difficulties, but potentially missing out on the greater revenues possible by offering loans directly.
Copyright © 2016 FINTECH GLOBAL
