Maven leads £2.8m investment in peer-to-peer lender

Glasgow-based investment house Maven has led the £2.8 million investment in UK peer-to-peer (P2P) lender Lending Works.

The total transaction value also includes £800,000 of funding from NVM Private Equity, Pollen Street Capital, and a small number of business angels.

Founded in 2014 by CEO Nick Harding and CFO Matt Powell, Lending Works’ highly scalable platform seamlessly connects private and institutional lenders to individual and corporate borrowers.

Lending Works provides an alternative to traditional lenders such as banks and building societies for customers seeking a loan, helping them to take control of their own finances. These loans are both low cost and flexible, and also deliver a competitive yield to lenders or investors, which often betters the rate that they could typically receive on their savings.

The business was the first major P2P platform to be fully authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority, the first to be authorised to provide an ISA offering and is also the first P2P provider to have negotiated insurance cover for its lenders, providing protection against a borrower defaulting on debts. This enhanced protection means lenders can take greater comfort that their money is secure.

Having experienced rapid growth in recent years, Lending Works has become one of the largest P2P consumer lending platforms in the UK; customers have already borrowed a total of £115 million, of which £32 million was allocated in the first half of 2018 alone. Maven’s investment will help strengthen the operational team to further streamline the technical platform, as well as adding additional resource to the sales and marketing function to help develop new strategic partnerships.

P2P and crowdfunding platforms are fuelling the UKs growing alternative finance market, with the sector experiencing significant popularity following the economic crisis. The global market is growing rapidly, with the overall P2P segment estimated to reach $150 billion by 2025, in which Lending Works has been steadily gaining market share in the UK.

Melanie Goward, Investment Director at Maven said: “We are delighted to lead the investment in Lending Works, which has grown to become one of the leading P2P lenders in the UK. The firm has developed a reputation for being a responsible and ethical P2P market leader, which is evidenced by it being the first major platform to have been fully authorised by the FCA and the first to have negotiated insurance cover which provides lenders with protection against borrower defaults. The experienced management team, assembled and led by Nick and Matt, has a clear and executable strategy and we look forward to helping them deliver this in the coming years.”

Nicholas Harding, CEO at Lending Works said: “We are very pleased to have secured this investment from Maven, NVM and Pollen Capital. We have very ambitious plans to both dramatically improve the consumer credit market for customers and build a business that funds billions of pounds of loans per year. This investment will enable us to continue on that journey. The team at Maven immediately understood our business model and is supportive of our growth strategy. We look forward to working with them to take the business from strength to strength.”