SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Funding Circle, the leading small business loans platform in the UK, US, Germany and the Netherlands, today announced that investors have lent more than $10 billion to small businesses globally through its platform. Achieving this milestone in less than a decade, Funding Circle has proven that its model has become the preferred option for small business funding that fuels economic growth — with every $1 lent to a small business through Funding Circle in 2018 contributing $2 to GDP, according to Oxford Economics.
“We are incredibly proud that Funding Circle has become small business’ first choice for loans,” said Bernardo Martinez, Funding Circle US Managing Director. “We look forward to continuing to build on the strong foundations we have put in place to help many more businesses in the years ahead.”
Over the last nine years, Funding Circle has facilitated loans from more than 90,000 investors to 72,000 small businesses. This modern lending approach enables small businesses to access fast, affordable and transparent funding for a variety of business needs; while investors have the opportunity to earn attractive, risk-adjusted returns from a previously inaccessible asset class. Funding Circle’s business lending platform is the largest operating in any of our geographies by total global loan volume, number of investors and loans outstanding1.
Today Funding Circle manages a loan portfolio of $3 billion (£2.5 billion) in the United Kingdom and $1 billion in the United States, plus an additional $175 million (€156 million) and $129 million (€115 million) in Germany and the Netherlands, respectively. Not only was Funding Circle the first lending platform anywhere in the world to have facilitated more than $1 billion across two markets, but within the United States the company holds more US small business loans outstanding than almost 98% of banks2.
In each market that Funding Circle serves, banks continue to focus on loans to larger companies despite smaller businesses’ outsized contributions to the economy. The lack of support from traditional bank lenders has resulted in more small businesses turning to non-bank options such as online lending when seeking finance, driving huge economic growth as a result. Oxford Economics found that in 2018 alone, lending through Funding Circle contributed $8.7 billion (measured in “gross value added”) to the global economy, and created and sustained 115,000 jobs globally.
About Funding Circle
Funding Circle (corporate.fundingcircle.com) is a global small business loans platform, connecting businesses who want to borrow with investors who want to lend in the UK, US, Germany and the Netherlands. Since launching in 2010, investors across Funding Circle's geographies -- including more than 90,000 retail investors, banks, asset management companies, insurance companies, government-backed entities and funds -- have lent $10.2 billion to 72,000 businesses globally.
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1 cumulative global originations and number of investors, and current global loans outstanding, according to Funding Circle internal data, OC&C analysis and estimates.
2 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Statistics on Depository Institutions. March 2019. “Amount of currently outstanding commercial and industrial loans less than $1,000,000 held in domestic offices.” https://www5.fdic.gov/sdi/download_large_list_outside.asp.