Welendus launches new £150,000 crowdfunding campaign

PEER-TO-PEER payday loan platform Welendus has launched a new crowdfunding round on Seedrs this morning to raise an additional £150,000.

The lender, which raised £100,000 from investors during a Seedrs fundraise in March, has already reached 92 per cent of its target by attracting funding from the existing crowdfunding backers.

Nadeem Siam, founder and chief executive of Welendus, said the money raised would be used for marketing and increasing the team, with a launch expected “imminently.”

“Before the campaign was released the existing Seedrs shareholders got the opportunity to invest,” Siam said.

“We are hoping to be overfunded.

“We will begin to open the investment door imminently, with shareholders getting the first opportunity.

“Investors will then get access on a first-come-first-served basis”

The platform, which received authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority in October, wants to shake up the payday lending market by offering more reasonable interest rates.

It trademarked the terms ‘AutoMatch’ and ‘AutoDiversify’ in June for use on its platform.

AutoMatch will be used to describe the process of automatically deploying investors’ funds, while the AutoDiversify feature will be used to spread investors’ money across a variety of loans.

Siam said there has been initial interest from around 20 lenders and enough support to meet its four to five month lending targets.