Waterfall, Funding Circle to fund small businesses

The funding will be deployed over a two-year period and will benefit from the platform’s machine learning capabilities, the groups said

Waterfall Asset Management has partnered with former peer-to-peer lender Funding Circle to provide £1bn ($1.24bn) of new funding to small businesses.

Institutional asset manager Waterfall will lend through Funding Circle’s platform, which is the largest small business loan platform in the UK.

The funding will be deployed over a two-year period and will benefit from the platform’s machine learning capabilities, the groups said in a statement.

The two businesses previously partnered in 2018 to fund another £1bn ($1.24bn) in loans.

We are proud of our four-year partnership with Waterfall which will continue to provide tens of thousands of small businesses with the finance they need to drive the post-pandemic recovery, said Lisa Jacobs, chief executive officer of Funding Circle. It’s great to see a wide range of investors leveraging Funding Circle’s machine learning and technology capabilities to lend to SMEs at both speed and scale.

The extension of the partnership comes after Funding Circle decided to permanently close down its retail P2P lending platform. Instead, the platform has focused on providing loans to SMEs and has also launched a business-to-business buy-now-pay-later product.

Founded in 2010, the group was one of UK’s oldest P2P platforms. A wide range of investors are using the platform to lend £14bn ($17.37bn) to approximately 120,000 businesses globally.

Henrik Malmer, managing director at Waterfall, added: We are pleased to continue our partnership with Funding Circle and to support SME lending in the UK. We have been impressed by Funding Circle’s resilience throughout the Covid crisis and believe Funding Circle’s platform and technology will be effective in enabling investors to access this asset class and supporting borrowers in the post-pandemic recovery.