P2P mortgage platform LendInvest has reported a second consecutive profitable year of trading, growing its bottom line from £1.2m in 2014 to £3.1m in the year to March 2015. The news follows on from the UK’s largest ever Series A round of £22m, secured in June 2015, and backed by the listed Chinese technology company Beijing Kunlun.
Since its launch in 2013, LendInvest has lent over £400 million in the UK’s short-term mortgage market, having crossed the £300m mark in cumulative lending volume as recently as May 2015. Investors have funded 700 mortgages on properties worth a combined £0.7 billion and enjoyed average returns of 7.5% per annum.
Christian Faes, Co-Founder & CEO of LendInvest, commented on the results:
“We are proud to lead the way as the first P2P platform in the world to report two consecutive years of profit and forecast more. LendInvest’s performance to date makes a strong case for P2P as a permanent fixture in the makeup of UK financial services, as well as an attractive and investable asset class.”
The company, a spin-off of short-term mortgage lending business Montello, was the world’s first peer-to-peer marketplace for property and is the fourth largest UK P2P lender. Its mission consists of matching individual and institutional investors with UK property entrepreneurs looking for mortgage finance for up to 36 months. With its proprietary technology, LendInvest can markedly reduce the time taken to complete a mortgage application from the average of three months to just a few hours. The platform is currently attracting £100 million of borrowing application per month, and is approving approximately a quarter of them.
Christian Faes added:
“LendInvest has shown that the P2P platform model can be made into a real business – one that makes money. […] Lending money is easy. Lending money well is much harder. At LendInvest we are lending substantial volumes but, more crucially, we are a profitable business without having to rely on external funding to stay alive”
In past coverage, AltFi News has reported LendInvest’s intention to stage an IPO, which we expected to arrive prior to the close of 2016. Consistent profitability will be a valuable metric to point to in valuing the company, whenever the much-rumoured listing rolls around.
