(Jan 12): British peer-to-peer lenders were bracing for disaster when the UK voted to quit the European Union on June 23. Maybe they needn’t have worried.
Funding Circle, the biggest online lender for small businesses in the UK, has raised US$100 million ($143 million) in equity funding, it said in a statement Thursday. Accel Partners, the Palo Alto, California-based venture capital firm, led the round, which included Index Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and Temasek Holdings, Singapore’s state-owned investment company.
Retail investors and borrowers have flocked to their platforms since the Brexit vote. The industry’s cumulative loan volume has surged by 28%, to 8.7 billion pounds ($15.1 billion), according to AltFi Data, a London-based research firm. Funding Circle’s lending has jumped by a third since the June 23 referendum.
