Crowdfunding site Linked Finance has secured €2.5m in funding from Frontline Ventures Loans. The cash injection will be used to double Linked Finance’s headcount, as well as expand the business and improve its IT.

Linked Finance already has a lending community of 8,000 people and the new investment from Frontline follows a series of investor presentations in the US and Europe.

The firm says that the investment will also allow it to ramp up lending to SMEs to around €20m in 2015, rising to €250m by 2017.

Frontline Ventures is an Irish-owned VC group with offices in Dublin and London. It typically invests in early-stage software companies across Europe, working in the areas of big data, cloud services, internet and mobile.

Principals at Frontline include Shay Garvey, Will Prendergast and Kim Pham.

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Linked Finance, meanwhile, was founded by Peter O'Mahony in 2013 and acts as a marketplace connecting private investors with businesses looking for funding.

“A key differentiator for us rests in the fact that lenders and borrowers become partners in success rather than simply the parties to a transaction,” said O'Mahony.

“Time and time again our borrowers highlight to us the non-financial support that they get from the community who provide funding to them via Linked Finance.”

So far, the firm claims to have supported over 250 Irish businesses with loans totalling some €7m.