The European Investment Fund (EIF) has pumped over $2 billion into venture capital funds and startups in the last four years; with the vote to leave the European Union, venture capitalists in the UK now fear that this important source of funding will disappear as the government looks to officially complete Brexit; the UK is not as fortunate as the US when it comes to endowments that allocate capital to funds, therefore the EIF has filled a much needed role; there currently is no plan to replace the EIF when the UK officially leaves, though lawmakers and lobbyists are looking to see if they can strike a deal to keep the flow of capital coming. Source
The Estonian-based P2P lender turned a profit late 2016; hopes to turn an annual profit in 2017; revenues were 4.2 million euros (USD $4.5 million) in 2016; according to CEO Partel Tomberg: "Looking at the bigger picture, we were a bit looking for our place. We have tried a number of products, businesses and client segments over the years. By mid-2016 we understood that our focus has to be on what we started from – a faster and cheaper consumer loan product. And we understood that on the investment side it has to be an online product for the people, not so much for the banks or funds." Source
Giles Andrews launched Zopa, the industry's first peer-to-peer lending platform, in 2005; he has now taken on a new role as the chairman of MarketInvoice; MarketInvoice provides P2P financing for small business invoices giving them an alternative source for working capital; Giles Andrews will help the firm scale its business and reach its 2017 goal of 2 billion British pounds ($2.48 billion) in lending. Source
Innovate Finance has announced eight industry leaders for a new ambassador program; Innovate Finance is one of the UK's most active trade associations for fintech; it's led by CEO Lawrence Wintermeyer; some of the program's industry leading ambassadors include Anju Patwardhan from the CreditEase FinTech Fund and Mike Sigal from 500 Startups; the ambassadors will be actively involved in the organization's upcoming Global Summit on April 10 and 11 in London. Source
Zopa launched its Plus product one year ago; the Plus product is the firm's highest risk and highest return offering; investors are reporting a 6% short-term return for the loan investments which fall in two additional risk categories: D and E; since introduced the platform has lent more than 100 million British pounds ($124 million) from approximately 9,000 investors. Source
Government officials recently created legislation for P2P lenders in Lithuania; FinBee, a small business lender is the first to have received the license and has officially launched using Madiston's software; according to FinBee CEO Laimonas Noreika: "We were delighted to be the first P2P platform to receive our license to help small businesses borrow to finance their growth. Our technology helped us to achieve this. When we first launched consumer lending, we chose Madiston's software because it was ready to go with what we needed but also gave us the ability to add functionality as we grow. The first step in our expansion plan was to add business lending and the technology was there for us, Madiston has been a supportive partner throughout." Source
In the midst of getting ready to launch in a few weeks the UK digital bank Tandem is now unable to launch with savings accounts; the bank was approved in 2015 for a banking license so long as they fulfilled a number of criteria including hiring a board, building out sufficient technology systems and raising enough capital to cover losses; the final point is where the bank was unable to comply, they fell short of raising enough capital and now are forced to launch without the savings feature; Tandem was expecting 29 million British pounds ($36.1 million) from House of Fraser, the UK department store chain that was bought by China's Sanpower Group, but Sanpower was worried about capital restrictions coming out of China so they pulled the funding. Source
Kabbage has reported it will open a new office in Ireland; the geographic expansion follows a 50 million euro ($54 million) investment from the Irish Strategic Investment Fund which is managed by the country's National Treasury Management Agency; the Kabbage lending platform is focused on lending to small businesses and the firm expects to help support the Irish small business sector while also creating many high-quality financial services jobs in Ireland. Source
Media site Bridging & Commercial filed a freedom of information request into the British Business Bank's investments in P2P platforms; since 2014 the British Business Bank has invested 135 million British pounds ($168 million); commitments are made via the Business Finance Partnership Tranche (BFP) and the Investment Programme (IP); the details are outlined in the above chart. Source
UK debt crowdfunding platform Property Crowd has announced the launch of its innovative finance individual savings account (IFISA); the minimum investment for the IFISA is 5,000 British pounds ($6,220) and the account will target returns of 7% to 10%; Property Crowd will compete for investment across the alternative debt market however its offerings vary slightly from traditional P2P lenders since the firm's debt products include structured real estate bonds. Source