Rothschild, through its RIT Capital Ltd investment trust, invested into p2p lending service Zopa. Their VC fund Augmentum Capital has led a “multi-million pound” round which for Zopa is the series D round. Forward Venture Partners as well as previous backers Bessemer Venture Partners and Wellington Partners participated in the investment. Details of the transaction were not disclosed.
Sources: Financial Times, Techcrunch
Watch the preview of the coming new Zopa TV advert. It will air starting next Monday on channels like Dave, More4, Sky Sports 2 and ITV4. There will be a second version emphasizing how Zopa is different from banks.
This week Zopa celebrated the milestone of 100 million GBP in p2p loans funded (since it’s launch in 2005).
Here is how ITV London tonight featured Zopa yesterday:
This twitter post caused some speculation that Zopa UK is working to add a secondary market to the p2p lending service. I didn’t contact Zopa management asking to comment on this for I believe they probably would neither have confirmed nor denied plans on a secondary market.
As discussed before the issue with offering a secondary market isn’t the technical or commercial implications, but to find a model that is in compliance with regulation.
Zopa has changed it’s debt purchase process due to changes in legislation. Continue reading
British p2p lending company Zopa has recently entered two partnerships.
Zopa Prime
Zopa partners with the Charity PRIME to offer loans to entrepreneurs over 50 starting or running a business. The loan is not a loan to the business but a personal loan of up to 15,000 GBP (approx 24,125 US$). PRIME is the Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise. The charity’s role is to vet the business plan of the applicant.
Lenders benefit because all Zopa prime loan listings are 50% guaranteed by PRIME. More details on how to obtain a loan.
Zopa and Good Energy
Zopa also partnered with Good Energy, a 100% renewable electricity supplier. Customers of Good Energy can use a Zopa loan listing to fund the initial installation cost of solar panels or wind turbines. In this partnership Zopa uses affiliate links with a branded landing page:
http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/affiliates/zopa
Benefits for Zopa from the partnerships are: