Exclusive: EstateGuru completes its €5.8m Series A with UK launch “in the coming months”

Tallinn-based property lending platform EstateGuru has closed its long-awaited Series A funding round, which tops-up its recent €1.3m crowdfunding round to a total of €5.8m raised.

CEO and founder Marek Pärtel told AltFi that the additional funds come from venture capital investors across Europe, including listed UK investor TMT Investments Plc, Swiss VC Verve Ventures, and J&T IB And Capital Markets, the investment banking arm of Czech bank J&T.

“We wanted to put together a very wide round—it makes sense to have investors from different geographies because we are building a pan-European, and hopefully one day a global, company,” the CEO added.

Given the VC funds are being added to the earlier crowdfunding, EstateGuru’s Series A valuation remains at €49m pre-money.

The new cash is going in a few directions, including hiring and investing in EstateGuru’s tech, like improving its risk-related tech around loan origination to evaluate deals more effectively.

Another key focus, Pärtel told AltFi, will be geographic expansion into Spain, the Netherlands and the UK.

“We would like to fund the first UK deal in the coming months,” he said. “That’s the plan because we are ​​currently working on the first deals.”

EstateGuru has held the UK licence to launch its property peer-to-peer lending platform in the market since 2019 but says it is now finally ready to launch.

Finally, Germany accounts for around 40 per cent of the company’s lending volume, yet it only has three staff in the country, which Pärtel says he plans to change soon.

In the second quarter of 2021, EstateGuru originated €46.2m in fresh lending, up 180 per cent year-on-year led by heavy growth in Germany, generating €1.7m in revenues for the firm.