Flender looks to raise £2m from institutional friends

SOCIAL lending peer-to-peer platform Flender is planning a funding round to prepare for its launch in the UK.

The business and consumer lender, which lets borrowers share their fundraising campaigns on social media, is raising £2M in equity funding and looking for more in debt funding.

Borrowers can create and share a personalised link to their campaigns on social networks, or invite selected individuals to contribute to their loans directly by email.

Oli Cavanagh (pictured), founder of Flender, said most of this money would come from institutional investors and would help with an eventual UK launch.

“We’re trying to cope with the Irish demand and build out the team first in order to be able to manage the UK demand, assuming it’s proportional,” he said.

“We’re also talking to a number of parties with a view to raising £2m equity funding and hoping to close in September. This will significantly help our UK launch.”

Flender, which gained full authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority in May and soft launched in Ireland, is no stranger to fundraising having raised £500,000 on crowdfunding platform Seedrs earlier this year.

Cavanagh said there has been demand for more than €17M in loans from the Irish market alone so far.

He estimates the market in lending among friends and family is worth almost £3bn.

Once launched in the UK, the platform also plans to offer an Innovative Finance ISA that will mirror the platform’s average yield rate of between eight per cent and 14 per cent.