Lendable, a UK-based online lending platform, has landed up to £300m from specialty lender Castle Trust Capital.
Castle Trust said it will invest the money over the next three years in consumer loans originated via the platform.
Founded in 2014, Lendable uses machine learning technology to automate credit underwriting and offer instant personal loans at fair rates. It funds its loans through a marketplace of institutional and qualified private investors.
Prior to founding the company, Martin Kissinger worked in venture development at Rocket Internet, and among other projects started the incubator’s first fin-tech venture, Lendico. He previously spent time at venture capital firms including Accel Partners.
Kissinger said the money will allow Lendable to further grow its lending portfolio in 2018 and beyond.”
The deal represents the second large institutional investor Lendable has signed with this year, after a £100m investment in March by Waterfall Asset Management. Earlier this month, Lendable announced that it had hit the £100m cumulative lending milestone. The peer-to-peer consumer lender said that it is the third UK consumer lender after Zopa and RateSetter to reach this milestone and that it reached it in the fastest time.
Sean Oldfield, founder and CEO of Castle Trust, said: “Castle Trust is excited to partner with Lendable as they grow their footprint in the UK consumer lending space. Following extensive review of the market we concluded that Lendable’s focus on machine learning and innovative distribution channels was consistent with the approach taken on our own originations to generate maximum value for customers and capital providers.”
Back in 2014, the company landed £2.5m in seed financing from a group of leading angel investors, including personal investments from Passion Capital partners Eileen Burbrige, Robert Dighero, and Stefan Glaenzer.
In the first three quarters of the year, investment into the Marketplace Lending sector reached over $6.3bn according to the data by FinTech Global.
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