Invest & Fund is a dynamic marketplace designed to connect individual lenders with SME borrowers. The platform was designed to be FCA compliant – its directors having kept close contact with the FCA throughout the platform’s construction. The vast experience of those directors is part of the allure of the new platform. Co-Founder and CEO David Turner enjoyed a decorated 30 years as a City of London trader before focusing his energies solely on Invest & Fund in early 2013. Fellow Co-Founder Mark Hawkins, a Chartered Accountant, has 30 years of experience in directorship roles with SMEs. The key point is that the pair have an intimate understanding of the funding issues facing SMEs.
Asked what distinguishes the Invest & Fund platform from current p2p providers, CEO David Turner said:
“Due to the team’s collective experience and expertise, we have been able to build a proprietary dynamic bidding exchange (DBE), which enables investors to obtain the highest rate available on a particular loan and the borrower to obtain the most competitive rate available on their loan. This makes using the Invest & Fund exchange an attractive proposition for both parties.”
Technological superiority in general appears to be a key selling point for the platform. In addition to the above-mentioned DBE, Invest & Fund will also boast Active Capital Employed (ACE) and Auto Invest features. The ACE tool constantly prompts lenders to invest and reinvest their funds into projects – rather than having those funds lie idle. Once investors hit the bottom threshold in terms of percentage yield in the bidding process, they are eliminated from that particular auction. The Auto Invest tool will then locate investment opportunities with the same criteria, so that investors always get the returns they’re looking for.
Stephen Kenny was instrumental in designing the Invest & Fund exchange. Kenny was previously the first CTO at Betfair, where he was responsible for their systems. Yet another reason to believe that the Invest & Fund platform could become a powerful force in the p2p space on the back of a technological edge.
