Linked Finance Hits €50m Lending Milestone

/ 24th April 2018 /

Peer-to-peer lender Linked Finance is celebrating five years in business, as the Irish firm hit the milestone of having lent more than €50m to Irish SMEs since it launched in 2013.

The €50m milestone was reached recently via a loan raised through Linked Finance for Language Options Ireland. The company, a specialist provider of international education services, will use its €32,000 loan to invest in marketing their exchange student programmes in new territories.

Linked Finance has now provided more than 1,400 loans to businesses across the country and in every sector of the economy. Other companies that have raised funding with Linked Finance include Viking Splash Tours, The Rolling Donut, Big Red Cloud, Lolly & Cooks, Murphy’s Ice Cream, Iconic Offices and the Irish Fairy Door Company.

Last year saw total Linked Finance lending reach €24.2m for the year, an increase of 155% on 2016. The firm also recorded its best quarter to date in Q1 2018.

Linked Finance raised €2m in a funding round led by the company’s original VC backers, Frontline Ventures, in October 2017. Operating company Linked P2P Limited booked a loss of €1.1m in the year to April 2017, bringing accumulated losses to €3.3m. The firm had a year-end net deficit of €2.7m.

Linked Finance was launched by Peter O’Mahony (pictured) in 2013. The firm’s lending community is now more than 18,000 strong. Users range from ordinary individuals looking to support businesses belonging to friends and families, up to large international investment groups. In Q1 2018, the average loan request was funded in 22 hours.

"When I started the platform back in 2013, I wanted to make it easier for hard-working Irish business owners to access the funds needed to grow and drive the economy forward,” said O’Mahony.

“I’m delighted with the growing popularity of the platform and the many ways in which Linked Finance is making it easier for Irish SMEs to access credit. It’s a real testament to the power of technology and its ability to connect people and solve problems. I really believe that this represents the future of business lending in Ireland.”

Niall Dorrian, CEO of Linked Finance, said that he was encouraged to see the growth that the company has achieved in recent years. “Our ultimate goal is to make Linked Finance the biggest source of non-bank funding to SMEs in Ireland and that’s what we will be working towards in the next five years.”