CapitalRise targets larger loans and £100m milestone after ‘significant growth’ last year
CapitalRise more than tripled its lending volumes and saw its revenues grow 10-fold in its last financial year, as it targets the £100m lending milestone in 2020.
The online property investment platform, which focuses on prime property in London and the South East, has originated £54.2m of loans and repaid £27.3m to investors, as of March 2020. It said in its latest annual results that it has secured over £50m of new institutional funding lines and is “poised to increase lending volumes significantly in 2020”.
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CapitalRise reported a loss of around £1.5m for the year ended 31 July 2019, according to the document filed with Companies House.
However it declared itself “well funded”, having raised over £3.4m in equity over the period. A cash flow forecast for the following 12 months from the accounting period, prepared by management, indicated that the firm will have enough cash to meet its debts as and when they are due.
The London-based firm said it “invested heavily” in process automation over the last financial year, which enabled it to keep human resource costs low whilst transaction volumes scaled significantly.
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Monthly volumes from investors into the platform more than doubled compared to the previous financial year.
Commenting on the latest financial results, CapitalRise chief executive Uma Rajah (pictured) said it had been “a great year…of significant growth, without sacrificing quality standards”.
Looking ahead, the company is planning to maintain its focus on the prime market, she said, using its institutional funding lines to provide larger loans.
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Rajah also revealed that the coronavirus pandemic has not impacted the business so far.
“Everything is on track at the moment,” she told Peer2Peer Finance News.
“The average term of our loans is 17 months, with big buffers built in to tolerate if development sites are unable to function for a while.
“We’re focused on our live loans and have stepped up communication to our customers. We’ve also stepped up our internal governance processes and loan monitoring.”
A recent development project in London’s Chelsea was funded last week extremely quickly, showing that “investor appetite is as strong as ever,” she said.
Rajah said that there are no loans currently available on its secondary market, indicating that CapitalRise has not experienced the same spike in withdrawal requests that other platforms have seen.
Rajah also said that CapitalRise has seen an increase in new deal flow amid the pandemic.
“Other lenders have hit the pause button and borrowers have been left at the altar,” she added.