
The 50 most disruptive British businesses in 2016: The Everline Future 50
The most disruptive businesses in Britain were revealed on 3 March at our Everline Future 50 2016 event, which this year took place in London’s Bankside Vaults.
Six of the 50 businesses secured special accolades to highlight particularly standout innovations, and LendInvest, a P2P platform specialising in mortgages, secured the Future Unicorn Award on the big night by demonstrating great potential for future profits. The company initially opened for business as an offline mortgage lender in 2008 and the founding team was always on the lookout for diverse opportunities for lending capital. Speaking with Real Business, co-founder and CEO Christian Faes recalled the wake-up to digital when he noticed “success from the likes of Funding Circle, and also Lending Club in the US”. He noted that the UK government is eager to support the P2P industry – we’ve seen London councils adopt the finance method for small firms – and said they didn’t notice anyone using it for property, thus set out to take the offline experience online and effectively entering the increasingly busy proptech market. Commenting on the user base, Faes explained: “From the investor side, there’s a whole range of small investors who can get involved for as low as £100 right up to large banks buying loans. “As a marketplace we’re two-sided and the borrowers we’re targeting at the moment are property entrepreneurs, who are pretty active in buying and selling often, with multiple transactions and capital returns quite quickly.” Fresh from its victory at the Everline Future 50, which we’ll discuss later, LendInvest raised £17m from Atomico – a tech venture capital firm launched by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström. “We’ve been working on it for a while but it feels good to get it completed and announced, so we’re really excited,” said Faes.Zoopla founder declares “change is inevitable” as proptech players prosper
Detailing why there was such a quick demand for more capital, Faes detailed: “We have significant momentum as a business and as the player to change the mortgage market, so we want to capitalise on the position and really go for it.” The deal with Atomico will see partner Mattias Ljungman join the LendInvest board. Faes expects a “positive impact” on the dynamics of the business, given that Ljungman has significant experience of fast-growth tech companies, having worked with the likes of Clash of Clans developer Supercell and taxi app Hailo.We’re proud to have made the #everlinefuture50 along with other fantastic, disruptive businesses. #GameChangers https://t.co/C3rAg8EfPl
— LendInvest (@LendInvest) March 7, 2016
Read more on P2P developments:
- Challenger bank director Lord Turner: P2P losses will make bankers look like lending geniuses
- P2P finance exploded in 2015 as loans from Lending Works grew fourfold
- Why Zopa’s CEO believes fintech trailblazers aren’t there to “kill the banks”
Things aren’t all seamless though as Faes said, like any company, there are challenges. Operating in the P2P sector means competing for the same pool of investors, though evidently for LendInvest, that doesn’t appear to be a problem.
Finding good people also keeps the team busy, and while it gets easier as the firm grows, the challenge is being mindful to be competitive to bring staff in.Share this story