JustUs owner raises over £1.3m from Crowdcube campaign
JustUs’ parent company eMoneyHub has completed its Crowdcube campaign, raising over £1.3m and doubling its active lender base in preparation for launching peer-to-peer mortgages.
eMoneyHub, which owns P2P lending platform JustUs and personal finance comparison site Moneybrain, has raised £1,374,180 from 502 investors, beating its £1.3m fundraising target.
The Crowdcube campaign was launched after eMoneyHub recently raised £1.2m by utilising the government’s future fund.
Lee Birkett (pictured), founder of eMoneyHub, said funds raised will go towards building the JustUs compliance team to launch P2P owner-occupied residential mortgages, called the People’s Mortgage.
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The People’s Mortgage will offer investors the opportunity to fund 2.5 per cent fixed interest rate residential mortgages for homeowners, which are Innovative Finance ISA eligible.
Birkett said funds will also go towards the platform’s Small Business Interruption Loan Service (SBILS), aimed at businesses that missed out on funding through the government’s coronavirus support schemes and that demand for SBILS should rise when these programmes end on 31 March.
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JustUs’ active lender base has already doubled as a result of the Crowdcube campaign.
Funds will also be spent on growing JustUs’ investor base and scaling the platform as well as paying for the necessary additional resources for eMoneyHub to offer its services to a global audience.
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“The Crowdcube campaign has been all consuming,” Birkett said.
“502 investors is a huge number and I’m over the moon. I wanted to increase our active investor base and we’ve doubled it.
“Launching P2P mortgages is a big aim for us, that’s where the biggest need is, that and SBILS. We’ve built the platform and just need to wait and see what the Chancellor will do now. We need Treasury engagement for the likes of SBILS.
“I hope the Chancellor gets behind this type of lending, in theory P2P and crowdfunding is needed more than ever. I hope the Chancellor gives incentives to investors via the Enterprise Investment Scheme and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme and not crush us through what is a desperately needed solution.”
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eMoneyHub made the campaign available to public investors in January after giving early access to JustUs investors and users of its sister platform Moneybrain.
The group had extended the campaign from 14 February to the end of the month to give investors more time to ask the firm questions.