Propio raises £278,000 from future fund for Autumn P2P launch
Property lender Propio has raised £278,000 in total from its funding round and the government’s future fund to prepare for its delayed launch into peer-to-peer lending this Autumn.
In April, the property investment platform said it had already stopped offering new mini-bonds and was in the midst of a funding round to support its launch into the P2P lending market in May or June, but this was pushed back after a cornerstone investor pulled out due to Covid-19 induced uncertainty.
The residential, bridging and development lender then launched a private funding round which raised £139,000 and used the government’s future fund, which offers convertible loans, to match this investment.
Propio will use the funds to gain its appointed representative permissions from Rebuildingsociety, grow its volumes and update its technology platform in preparation for launching in some point in October.
Read more: Over 450 companies have been approved for the future fund
“The future fund is a much-needed and welcome initiative for us,” said Tom Buttress, co-founder and chief executive of Propio.
“It’s gotten us out of a difficult situation when an institutional investor pulled out. It’s taken a long time during Covid-19 to move things forward but we’re in good shape. We just want to thank the current investors who continued to believe in the team and the business behind it.
“We’ve raised about £15m through the platform to date but through bond investments and now we’re switching to become P2P. We have strong foundations to kick on from and these latest funds will help us do that.
“Our loanbook is in a very good shape and that’s as a result of robust underwriting and credit decisioning we’ve implemented over the past three years.
“We’re an award-winning platform, have a really strong customer satisfaction based on our Trustpilot rating and our investors are pleased with our average return of 6.3 per cent which we don’t expect to drop.”