LendInvest, the UK’s largest online marketplace for property finance, has completed a £17 million Series B equity investment from Atomico, the venture capital firm founded by Niklas Zennström, the co-founder of Skype.
This is LendInvest’s second equity investment in nine months. In June 2015, LendInvest secured a £22 million Series A investment from Beijing Kunlun. The current round takes LendInvest’s total institutional funding (debt and equity) to over £200 million.
LendInvest was launched in 2013 by founders Christian Faes and Ian Thomas, and has lent £560 million to finance 2,100 properties in the UK. Faes and Thomas were the first to bring the speed and efficiency of online marketplace (or ‘peer-to-peer’) lending to the UK mortgage market – a £1.3 trillion sector that is traditionally offline.
Today LendInvest’s technology reduces the time taken to process mortgages from months to days, while maintaining rigorous credit controls. LendInvest has also opened up mortgages as a new and attractive asset class that delivers returns of over 5% per annum for investors. Check out the video below this article to learn more about how LendInvest works.
LendInvest will use this funding to accelerate its investment in technology and extend its lead in the property finance market. The London-based company is recruiting its first Senior VP of Engineering and will expand its technology and product teams.
Christian Faes, Co-Founder & CEO of LendInvest commented: “To receive this backing from Atomico is an awesome opportunity for LendInvest. Atomico is a rare example of a VC firm whose founder has first-hand experience of building a multi-billion dollar, fast growth technology company, and that was hugely attractive to us. We have only scratched the surface of how technology will make mortgages a better, faster and more transparent consumer experience for borrowers and investors.”
Atomico Partner and co-founder, Mattias Ljungman, will join LendInvest’s Board as a Director. Mattias launched Atomico alongside Niklas Zennström in 2006 and has taken active roles in several of Atomico’s portfolio companies including Klarna and Supercell.
