Gordon Watson, Principal of Victory Park Capital, commented:
“Funding Circle has experienced tremendous growth over the past year and we are pleased to expand our on-going partnership to both sides of the Atlantic. With this additional lending facility, Funding Circle will be well-positioned to continue to disrupt the traditional banking model through 2015 and beyond.”
Funding Circle has now lent more than $850 million in loans to over 8,000 small businesses globally. This new agreement is an extension of the existing relationship between Funding Circle and Victory Park Capital, and will allow Funding Circle to provide a further injection of funding into the small business sector. The new also serves as a further sign of Funding Circle’s rapid growth globally over the past twelve months.
Samir Desai, CEO and co-founder of Funding Circle, weighed in:
“We’re pleased to be welcoming additional new financing to the marketplace, which will further support small businesses. Today’s news is a significant step on our journey to creating the global infrastructure where any investor, big or small, can lend to creditworthy small businesses looking to grow.”
Victory Park Capital was an early institutional partner to Funding Circle in the US. This latest provision of capital will be invested across all risk bands. Victory Park has been actively involved in the marketplace lending space since 2010 and has made more than $2.2 billion of investments and commitments across a number of financial technology platforms, geographies, products and structures.
Sachin Patel, Head of UK Capital Markets at Funding Circle, offered his thoughts:
“Partnering with Victory Park both in the UK and US is testament to our proven track record in facilitating loans with attractive yields and consistent credit performance. Funding Circle is opening up an asset class to investors that has previously only been available to high street banks.”
Victory Park is becoming increasingly active in the peer-to-peer space. In January it committed to investing up to £150 million via the Assetz Capital platform over the next 5 years. This was the largest single institutional investment to occur in the UK market. Then at the beginning of February Victory Park announced that it is setting up a listed fund to invest in loans originated by peer-to-peer platforms. This fund will float in London and raise £200 million this year. It follows in the footsteps of P2P GI, which successfully raised £250 million via a C-share offering in January. Going forwards it will be interesting to see if any other UK platforms can attract Victory Park’s attention.
