Zopa, one of the UK’s leading peer-to-peer lenders, has raised £60 million from investors on Thursday.
The £60 million sum is the biggest amount of funding it has received in a round so far. However, this will be its last round of funding before it becomes an established bank.
Zopa has not revealed how much the new funding round now values the company.
Jaidev Janardana, Chief Executive and co-founder of Zopa said:
“This new funding takes us a step closer to realizing our vision of being the best place for money in the UK”.
Established in 2005, Zopa has leant over £3.7 billion in unsecured personal loans to customers and in 2016 it applied for a banking licence.
In august it had raised £44 million. An additional £16 million in investments were gained since then closing the final fundraising round at £60 million.
Earlier in September, its competitor Funding Circle announced that it would be listed on the London Stock Exchange. The October listing raised less than initially expected. Shares in Zopa’s competitor, Funding Circle (LON:FCH), are currently trading at +2.82% (08:23 GMT).
Both Zopa and Funding Circle are two market leaders of Financial Technology.
Indeed, they both use new technology to compete with the traditional financial services.
In contrast to Funding Circle, Zopa has already made a profit, with £1.5 million recorded in 2017. This figure is up from the loss of £5.8 million the previous year.
No investor names have been given as of yet, but Zopa has revealed that both existing and new investors have contributed to the funding. Current investors include Augmentum FinTech, the Spotify investor Northzone and Bessemer Venture Partners.
The company’s decision to venture into banking follows as the peer-to-peer industry faces stricter regulations.
Zopa and Funding Circle are not the only companies to lead the way in UK FinTech, take a look at some other businesses also prospering.
