Technology

Posted on November 8, 2018 by staff

Zopa closes £60m funding round ahead of bank launch

Technology

Zopa has raised an additional £16 million on top of the £44m already announced as it closes its latest funding round.

The money came from new and existing investors. Although not disclosed, existing investors include Bessemer Venture Partners, Augmentum Capital, Northzone and Wadhawan Global Capital.

It has now raised a total of £92m. The P2P lender announced profits of £1.5m in 2017 and is now set to launch a bank to allow it to take deposits as a more stable source of funding.

“This new funding takes us a step closer to realising our vision of being the best place for money in the UK,” said CEO Jaidev Janardana.

“Having served half a million customers to date, Zopa is set to redefine the finance industry once again through our next generation bank to meet a broader set of UK customers’ financial needs.”

Zopa has lent more than £3.7 billion in unsecured personal loans to UK customers since it was founded in 2005.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) warned this year that it plans to limit how much P2P lenders like Zopa can advertise to retail investors as it was “not comfortable that risk and reward are always balanced appropriately” on the platforms.