Portuguese P2P firm to go public

The year’s first peer-to-peer lending IPO arrives… and it’s not Funding Circle.

The first IPO to launch in Portugal since 2014 will be for a peer-to-peer lending platform. Market leader Raize – which has lent €15.5m to date – is placing up to 15 per cent of its shares through a landmark listing.

The company will begin trading on the Lisbon Stock Exchange with a market cap of €10m. An additional 10 per cent of its shares will be made available six months after trading begins on 18 July.

Raize was launched in 2015 and claims to have pulled together ‘one of the largest investment communities in Portugal’, comprised of over 30,000 investors.

The platform describes itself as a Portuguese equivalent of global leader Funding Circle, which itself is planning a £1.5 billion London listing for later this year.

“The peer-to-peer lending model is still fairly new to many companies and investors in Portugal and there is a lot of room to grow,” said José Rego (pictured), co-founder and co-CEO of Raize.

“Taking the company public will increase our brand recognition with SMEs and investors and have a positive impact on growth.”

Rego and his co-founders will maintain control of and continue managing the company after the listing.

Raize is currently backed by a number of Portuguese institutional investors, including the Champalimaud family. The platform scooped a €10m lending agreement with Portuguese challenger bank Banco BNI Europa in May 2017, with the funds set to be distributed over a two year period.