Funding Circle has announced a new milestone with gross lending exceeding £40 million and average weekly lending of more than £1 million.

Here is the press release:

(Mortgage Finance Gazette) August 10, 2012 — The online lender, Funding Circle, which matches private investors with businesses looking for funding, has announced a new milestone with gross lending exceeding £40 million and average weekly lending now over £1 million.

Funding Circle has started to develop its proposition through the intermediary market. According to head of business development, Laura McMullen, Funding Circle is proving popular with businesses and their advisers as a welcome change from the lack of conventional funding and long winded and outdated processes.

She said: “We are encouraged that our ground breaking proposition is finding favour with professional advisers, whose clients are tired of the attitude of some traditional lenders.

“It can take more than three months in some cases for a bank to approve a business loan, which in today’s climate is simply unacceptable. Businesses require access to fast and convenient finance and as our introducers are finding out, loans through Funding Circle have, in some cases, been completed within a few days of application due to our unique online process and the appetite of our investors to fund good, solid enterprises.”

McMullen added: “Small businesses are the engine of the economy. For the UK to emerge from this recession these businesses require access to funding for growth and development. As more professional advisers are finding, we are removing the barriers to fast and convenient funding for small businesses across the UK.”

About Funding Circle

Funding Circle (www.fundingcircle.com) is the first ever online marketplace enabling savers and investors to sidestep banks and directly lend to small businesses.

Funding Circle differs from other lending platforms in that it facilitates loans to businesses, rather than consumers whilst also proving easy access to investors’ money at any time. It provides low cost finance for small, UK firms frustrated by the loan terms offered by the high street banks.

The monthly repayment loans available are for one, three or five years and for between £5,000 and £250,000. Each loan is comprised of small amounts of borrowing from many different people who compete to lend to the business in question, enabling it to borrow at a better rate. With no bank in the middle, both investors and borrowers achieve a better deal. Funding Circle investors receive 8.4% interest on average.

Funding Circle was co-founded in August 2010 by Samir Desai (formerly of Olivant & the Boston Consulting Group), James Meekings (formerly of OC&C Strategy Consultants) and Andrew Mullinger (formerly of Citigroup, Ernst & Young and Nomura).